Bessent on Gas Prices: What 3.7% Inflation Means for Crypto

So this is an energy shock. We will get to the other side of the Iran conflict, and those prices will come down.

Well, core inflation doesn' take energy, for example, into account or food into account. And and in fact, the price of gas is up 44% Mr. Secretary since the start of the war with Iran.

was Scott Bessent. That's the United States Treasury Secretary, and it's the man in charge of the American government's money. He was on NBC's Meet the Press on the 18th of October in 2026, and the host, Kristen Welker, put one number to him. Gas is up 44% from where it was when the war with Iran began. So she'd opened with another one.

On the 14th of October, the official figures showed inflation picked up to 3.7% in the year to September, the fastest pace in 5 months. And Bessent's answer was that this is an energy shock and that prices will come down once we get to the other side of the war. But when she asked him for a date, he wouldn't give one. So gas is up 44% and the Treasury Secretary won't say when prices will come down. In fact, American Treasury's boss says lower prices depend on a war.

And if you own XLP, I think Bessent's answer on gas prices, so change how you plan your money. He didn't say a word about crypto, but it's about what rising prices quietly do to the number on your screen. And there's a link I put in the first description. I'm going to explain to you in a few minutes, and if you've ever watched your crypto balance and never asked once what it actually buys, then this video's for you. And if we're honest, it was me, it was you, it was most of us.

And we check our coins and dollars and pounds, and if the number is bigger than it was, we feel like we're winning now. But it when we fill the car and pay the energy bill in the real world, where the same money stretches less every month. So we can be up on paper and falling behind at the same time, and the app will never tell us, right? So we'll hear what Bessent actually said and give him the side of it and look at what happened the last time you put a date on a cheaper gas. We're going to work out together what 3.7% does to a dollar into your gains, and we're going to check the crypto rule he was celebrating 3 days later.

Then we're going to finish with a simple way to measure your own money that the app won't show you, right? So to be fair to him, Bessent made a real case and he said if you strip out food and energy, the underlying rate of inflation had fallen months in a row. That was before September. He said rents were down and prescription drug prices had seen their biggest fall in history. Now, his point was that this is one shock from one war, and it will pass.

Well because the reply was that core inflation leaves out the very things people are struggling with, which are energy and food. And when it came the question that matters most for our wallets, this is what was said.

Do you anticipate gas prices will come down by the New Year?

Well, again, it will depend on what happens with the Iran conflict.

It will depend on what happens with the Iran conflict. Now, that's an honest answer, right? And I'll give him credit for it. Nobody can tell you when a war ends, but it also means that the man running America's Treasury is telling you on national television that he doesn't know when our bills will come down. And that's the part that should shape your planning, not his forecast, but the weight.

Now, however long it takes to reach the other side, every month of it your money buys a little less. And as always, this is not financial advice, so please do your own research. Like this if you're bullish, and let's get deep into it. [music] Right, before we go any further, guys, here's what that link in the description is for because it was made for exactly this problem. Am I telling you to buy XRP right now? No.

There may be way better opportunities for your situation, and there probably is, but whatever you hold, you should know whether it's really growing once rising prices have taken off and what you're doing with the money you keep on the side. And again, most of us never worked that out, and that's what our Altcoin Pro course is for. It helps you put that kind of plan together, you want a share of your money goes into each coin, how much you keep in stable coins, and why, and how to judge your progress by what your money buys, not just the bigger number on the screen. Guys, getting started is super simple. Go to the first link in the description, fill in the short form, book your free 15-minute call, and one of the team's going to go through your own strategy and your own situation with you.

Now, if you're watching this on your phone, just tap more under the video and it's the first link you'll see. Get it sorted before the next price rise lands because if you do it after it, you might be a little bit too late. Plan you've written down is worth far more than a guess made standing at the pump. So, once you've done that, come back because the last time Bessing gave a date for the cheaper gas is worth a look, right? And that 's what we're going to be doing next.

So, let's go back to the middle of April 2026. There was a ceasefire in place through the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lane a big share of the world's oil sales through, and it hadn't fully opened. Now Bessent was in Washington for the big spring meetings of the world's finance ministers, and Bloomberg asked him when Americans would get $3 gas again.

Uh again, I I'm optimistic that sometime between June 20th and September 20th that we can have $3 gas again.

So between the 20th of June 20th of September, that was a date, and he was clear it was a hope, not a promise. So what happened? Well, by the 20th of July, the fighting had flared up again, and NBC sent a report to a gas station in New Jersey.

Yeah, 4:15 where I am, even worse for diesel here. The national average, the highest since mid June, up 13 cents in a week. It's more than a dollar higher than it was before the war began here.

$4.15 at that pump, and it didn't turn round on the 24th of September just after the Bessent window, the motoring group AAA put the national average at $4.48 a gallon. So the window came and went, and gas finished in nearly $4.50 Now I'm not saying that to score a point. Wars don't keep to anyone's timetable. That's the whole lesson. And when even the Treasury Secretary best guess can miss by a dollar and a half, then your plan can't lean on anybody's guess about when things get cheaper, including mine, by the way.

So let's talk about what inflation actually does for your money. Well, Bessent himself gave us the best way to think about it. When he hit back at Biden years ago, this is exactly what God said.

Uh why don't we revisit the Biden era policies where the American people got smoked? 21.5% inflation and only about 17% wage increases since President Trump has started. The American people have gotten real wage increases, 1.5%. We're not satisfied with that.

Forget the politicians for a second. Look at the sum. If prices rise by more than your pay, then you've gone backwards, even though the number on your payslip went up, and that's what he means by real wages. Real just means after you take rising prices off, and that works for XLP too. Say your coins end a year worth 20% more than they started while prices rise by 3.7% over that same year.

Well, your real gain is about 16%. It's not 20. It's a gain all the same, but it's a smaller than the screen tells you, and the same check works on on savings account too. To ask how many gallons that balance bought in October 2025 and how many it buys in October 2026. And that's number your bank statement never shows you.

And remember, 3.7% is an average across everything people buy. If a big part of your spending goes on fuel and energy, then your own rate of inflation was probably higher than that. If you hardly drive, it may have been lower, but the number that matters is the one built around your spending. So, whenever you judge how your crypto is doing, try asking what it buys, not just what it's worth in dollars. Now, it's a less exciting number, yeah, but it's the honest one.

Welke then pressed Bessent on whose economy this is. Here's the part of the answer that I want you to listen to closely.

Uh, well, we will we will own the economy. We have so far this year, we've had a million private sector jobs. We've never had this many people working in the US. The net worth of American households are the highest that it's ever been. So, Kristen, let's be clear here.

This is an energy supply side shock. We will get to the other side of this.

The net worth of American household is the highest it's ever been. Well, going by the Federal Reserve figures published on the 11th of September 2026, that is fair. Now, reports on those figures put households wealth at a record in the second quarter of 2026 and after one of the biggest jumps on record driven largely by the stock market. But net worth is an average across the whole country and it's mostly shares and houses. Then the Fed's own breakdowns have long shown the richest 10th of the households own the large majority of American shares.

So, a record net worth and a family struggling at the pump can both be true at the same time. And here's why that matters for us. Net worth is counted in dollars. It tells you how many dollars you have and not what those dollars will buy. A record in dollars can sit right next to a family who can afford less than they could before because the dollars themselves are worth less than at a shop.

Now, a lot of crypto holders fall into exactly the same habit. We look at the balance in dollars or pounds and see a bigger number and then we feel richer. And to be honest, sometimes we are, but the only way to know is to ask what the balance would actually buy and then compare it with what would have bought before. Now, there is a crypto link to Bessent, right? But it came three days after the interview.

So, on the 21st of October 2026, he posted on X about a new rule for stable coins. That's the kind of token designed to always be worth $1. He called the Genius Act a watershed moment and he said cements America as the crypto capital of the Now the Genius Act is the American stable coin law signed in July 2025 and the rule he was cheering came from the OCC. That's the bank and regulatory that sits inside his own department. Now this is where XRP comes into it.

Ripple has a dollar stable coin of his own called RLUSD and it's issued on the RXLP ledger. So in December 2025 the same regulatory the OCC gave Ripple conditional approval to open a National Trust Bank. So the rules being written in Bessent's department reach right into the part of the crypto world that XRP lives in. Now that's a real link and it's worth watching but if it doesn't mean Bessent backs XRP and nothing he posed mentions it. So here's the twist that ties it back to his interview.

Under the Genius Act the company that issues a stable coin is not allowed to pay you interest for holding it. Whether their exchanges can pay rewards on top became one of the biggest fights over the rules. So a digital dollar sitting in your wallet behaves a lot like cash under the mattress. In a year when prices rose 3.7% a dollar token held that year bought about 3.7% less at the end of it. Stable in price doesn't mean stable in what it buys.

So if you park money in stable coins while you wait for a better moment then that's fine but know what it's costing you while you wait. So let's put it all together, right? Into one simple test. I'll use made up round numbers and you can swap in your own. Imagine your crypto was worth $10,000 at the start of the year.

Well when gas costs $3 a gallon that's about 3,300 gallons of fuel and by the end of the year your crypto is worth $11,000. So you're up 10% and the app shows a nice green number but say gas went up 40% over the same stretch. Well like the figure world could put to Bessent that takes it to about $40.30 a gallon. Your $11,000 now buys roughly 2,550 gallons. So in dollars you're up 10% but in fuel you've gone backwards almost by a quarter.

Fuel's an extreme example because the fuel prices jump much further than most but your own shopping basket will be different but the idea works with anything you actually spend money on. Pick the thing that matters to your household whether the fuel, food, energy or rent and every so often work out how much of it crypto would buy. Your crypto. And notice what the test doesn't ask. It doesn't ask where XRP is heading or what anyone thinks the price will be.

It just stops the dollar number from flattering you. Now Bessent might be right on the prices come down after the war and I hope he is but he told himself that he can't say when and the last day he gave came and when. So don' measure your progress against the day things get cheaper, measure it against what your money buys every step of the way. So here's what I'd like to know, if you measured your crypto in tanks of fuel instead of dollars or pounds, then would you be ahead or behind in 2026? Let me know in the comments, I suspect the answer will surprise a few people, and if you'd like someone to do the gallon sums on every big money headline, simply subscribe.

As always guys, stay bullish.

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