Most investors spend their time trying to predict what comes next.

But Paradigm’s iconoclast investor James Altucher tends to focus on moments when a familiar pattern stops behaving the way it normally does..

Sometimes that happens in markets. Sometimes it happens in technology. Sometimes it happens in cities.

In each case, those moments create opportunities — provided you recognize them before everyone else does.

Take Bitcoin.

Today, Bitcoin is a household name. Major financial institutions offer Bitcoin products. Pension funds own it. Financial media discuss it daily.

But in 2013, Bitcoin occupied a very different place in the public imagination.

At the time, many investors dismissed it as a curiosity. Others viewed it as little more than an experiment.

James became fascinated by the possibility that a new monetary network was emerging outside the traditional banking system.

More than a decade before Wall Street embraced Bitcoin ETFs, James appeared on CNBC to discuss why the cryptocurrency deserved a serious look. At the time, Bitcoin traded for about the price of a family dinner.

But the pattern he noticed was simple: people were beginning to trust a decentralized network to perform functions once reserved for banks and governments.

Soon enough, that idea no longer seemed so farfetched.

Then the pandemic arrived — and James noticed another pattern being disrupted.

Your Rundown for Friday, June 12, 2026...

SpaceX and the City

In August 2020, James published an essay — “NYC Is Dead Forever” — at The New York Post.

The title alone guaranteed a reaction.

The article went viral. Some readers applauded it. Others ridiculed it. Newspapers, commentators and public figures, including Jerry Seinfeld, argued that James had lost his mind.

Even still, office towers sat empty. Remote work was becoming commonplace. People who once paid a premium to live near their workplace suddenly had other options.

James’ argument wasn’t that New York City would vanish. It was that the city emerging from the pandemic would not be the same city that entered it.

Six years later, that no longer sounds particularly controversial. The pandemic fundamentally changed where millions of New Yorkers live and work. (Then came Mamdani.)

Now James is focused on SpaceX.

Most discussions surrounding SpaceX revolve around rockets, satellites or the company’s long-awaited public offering.

James sees a larger story.

In his view, SpaceX represents the next chapter in a trend that has been building for decades: private companies taking on projects once reserved for national governments.

Whether it’s communications networks, launch systems or the infrastructure needed to operate beyond Earth, the scale of the undertaking is difficult to overstate.

That’s why James believes the SpaceX SuperIPO could become one of the defining investment events of this era.

And if history is any indication, James frequently recognizes pattern disruptions long before most others realize something cataclysmic is happening.

Market Rundown for Friday, June 12, 2026

S&P 500 futures are down 0.90% to 7,325.

Oil is up 2% to $90 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold’s down almost 3% to $4,163 per ounce.

And Bitcoin’s down 1.35% to $61K.