Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Magazine

Tahini’s Bitcoin Treasury: How a Family Chain Outsmarted Inflation

Tahini’s Restaurants, a Canadian fast-casual restaurant chain specializing in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, integrated bitcoin into its business in 2020 and has been refining its strategy ever since. Today Bitcoin makes up over 70% of their reserves and has made a critical difference in their expansion to 62 restaurants in just over a decade.

“We just kept putting more and more money into bitcoin.” Omar Hamam, CEO and co-founder of Tahini’s, told Bitcoin Magazine. Omar and his brother Aly Hamam founded the company in 2012, starting with one restaurant in London, Ontario. Tahini’s has since grown to 62 restaurants across the country, their expansion amplified by their adoption of an early bitcoin treasury strategy, partially inspired by Michael Saylor in 2020. The bold move gave them a pool of capital with which they could compete with the giants of the fast-casual food industry.

As a small company that started in London Ontario Canada we operate 4 corporate locations and 3 Franshise locations about to open up in Ontario. We just converted our entire cash reserves that were originally used as savings into #Bitcoin
Time for thread

— Tahini’s (@TheRealTahinis) August 18, 2020

“We’re competing with McDonald’s, and Chipotle,” said Omar, adding, “All these companies have more money than 100 Tahini’s. So, to have an advantage like that, where we have a treasury and a balance sheet strategy that puts us in a comfortable place financially, that lets us preserve our wealth over time and space … it was the best decision we’ve ever made for our business.”

The company has implemented multiple innovative strategies throughout its journey, including the deployment of Bitcoin ATMs to many of their franchises, a new media strategy that, according to Aly, has netted them “three billion views over the last five years across all social media platforms,” including a YouTube channel with over 3.2 million subscribers and, of course, their bitcoin treasury strategy.

Aly’s Fascination with Bitcoin Post-COVID, Influenced by Egyptian Currency Devaluation

Aly Hamam was the main driver behind the restaurant’s bitcoin strategy. Shaped by his family’s experiences with the Egyptian pound’s aggressive devaluations over the past 20 years, the catastrophic consequences of runaway inflation were deeply personal to him, an experience that set him up well to discover bitcoin during the March 2020 market crash. “So, I came from Egypt, and over the last two decades, I’ve seen the Egyptian pound drop probably 85% or something like that. And I’ve seen our family struggle. I’ve seen my parents struggle. My parents had money sitting in Egypt over that time. I’ve seen their life savings get wiped away. Sometimes with Egypt, it happens like flash crashes. So, the government will come in and can just devalue the currency within a month, 50%,” Aly recalled.

When the COVID-19 market panic happened in March of 2020, the price of bitcoin went from a high of $10,000 to as low as $4,000 in weeks. “I bought a little bit as a gimmick and because it was just down so much, I was like, yeah, I might as well buy it. … The more I studied, I fell down the rabbit hole hard. Over the next few months, I just kept buying more and more and more, and you know those first three months when you discover bitcoin, it’s just like a never-ending consuming over every aspect of your life, listening to podcasts, reading books, and just buying more and more and more,” Aly explained.

After the crash, Bitcoin bounced back up to around $10,000, where it consolidated for months as governments throughout the world prepared their COVID-19 response and unleashed trillions of newly printed dollars into the global economy. Interest rates in the U.S. dropped to zero, and COVID-19 support checks started to flow to anyone in Canada who filled out a form. Omar recalled that “the government was just literally printing money nonstop. And it wasn’t just the Canadian government. It was every single government out there that was doing it. So, we knew there was going to be an inflation problem.” The Bitcoin halving was also taking place right around that time, an additional fundamental force that arguably led to one of the most impressive bull runs in its history.

This was the same era when Michael Saylor famously entered the industry and became the most famous Bitcoin bull to date. However, Saylor’s many speeches and documents on how to structure a corporate bitcoin strategy and how to convince the board of directors or other business partners were just starting to hit the podcast circuit, and the bitcoin treasury playbook was still in its infancy.

Once Aly was “100% in,” he started orange-pilling his family. “So, I started orange-pilling my business partners, my brother, my cousin, and they started buying it personally.” Personally they all started buying Bitcoin in small amounts, but using the company’s reserves was a far more difficult process, Aly explained that “it wasn’t quick. It was a back-and-forth where I wanted us to put the company money into bitcoin, and they were kind of on the edge. ‘That’s a crazy idea.’ ‘This’ and ‘that,’ and then we just kept going back and forth, back and forth until Michael Saylor announced that first buy. I had already set up like all the accounts and all of that was just ready to go. So, when Michael Saylor bought that first batch of bitcoin, that was what pushed us all over the cliff. And a week later, we put whatever money the company had into bitcoin.”

Acquisition Price, DCA Strategy, and Persistence Through Bear Markets

Tahini’s bitcoin investment strategy differs from today’s public companies, which issue stock (and other financial instruments) to buy bitcoin and add to their reserves. As a private company that started accumulating bitcoin before the ETF in the U.S. was approved, Tahini’s took a simpler approach: buy as much as reasonably possible each month, forever. According to Omar, today bitcoin represents over 70% of the company’s reserves.

While their timing was excellent, having started to buy bitcoin for their treasury at around $10,000, the strategy known as “dollar-cost averaging” works very well regardless of price, even in a bear market. Have a look at this DCA calculation, for example.

If you started putting $1,000 into bitcoin every two weeks at the top of the 2021 bull market — at nearly $70,000 per coin — every time you made a purchase at a lower price after that, you would be lowering your average purchase price. The result is that on the way out of the bear market — in this example, above roughly $30,000 — you would be at break-even and would be perfectly positioned for the upcoming bull market. The only requirement is having a long-term investment mindset.

“You buy every month, every single month. Ups and downs. I know it sounds too simple, but actually, this is the only way to do it. Right. You just buy, don’t try to outsmart the system, in my opinion, unless you’re really good at this. Put a number aside every single month, and it just pans out. And if you think about it, if you look at the last four years, you would have made more than 2-30x your investment,” Omar explained. He added that, “I have this conversation with a lot of people. Friends, family, everybody. And I always tell them, listen, just start somewhere. Don’t put a big amount and see how it works out for you. Right. So, let’s say you put a thousand dollars and watch it as a number that’s not going to be too bad if anything happens to it. See, if let’s say next year, this 1,000 becomes 1,200 or 1,500. Now imagine if you had 100,000 or imagine if you had a million, right? What would have happened to that amount?”

While there are no hard rules about the optimal frequency of the DCA strategy in Bitcoin, be it for individuals or corporations, Tahini’s opted for monthly purchases, as it made sense given their accounting processes. “Every month, we have a P&L. Every month, we see our profit and losses. And we decide at the end of the month, okay, we’re gonna put this much aside,” Omar explained.

When it comes to amounts, Omar explained that they do not invest a fixed or percentage-based amount. “It’s also about, are we investing this month back in the business? Are we not? What are our expenses like? Do we have any big payments? So, you know, sometimes you have all these expenses at the end of the year. So, you have your month highs and lows and so on, but the key is to stay consistent in putting money in. How much is what you have to decide every month.”

To Sell or to Mortgage Your Bitcoin?

When it comes to monetizing their Bitcoin Tahini’s has opted for the simple strategy. When the time is right, and the business opportunity demands it, they sell some Bitcoin and buy it back later, as per their standard DCA strategy, and integrate the capital gains tax into their accounting flow. Omar explained that, “When it comes time to reinvest, you know, you always need money. So, let’s say you want to do a huge marketing campaign as a franchise, right? You need to dip into those savings. And when you have money, you have power. The more money you have, the more you can be free to make the right decision for the company instead of just doing what you can afford.”

Challenges with Accepting Bitcoin Payments and POS Integration

As one of the first steps in their Bitcoin integration, Tahini’s explored the possibility of accepting bitcoin as payment at their restaurants; however, a series of challenges arose that forced them to pivot. Many of these challenges remain for businesses throughout the world and involve the entrenched, closed-source and walled-garden models of popular payment processing systems.

“A lot of these point-of-sale system companies, they do their own payment processing, and they just don’t have the capability to accept Bitcoin in their system,” Omar explained about the world of merchant-grade POS. Many of these systems are closed-source with very restrictive APIs that the Bitcoin economy cannot easily integrate into, a moat that has been an issue for bitcoin payment adoption since its inception.

However, the friction to merchant adoption is deeper than just a POS moat; the feature list merchants need to stay competitive is very complex, and most Bitcoin payment systems today are still lagging behind:

“The POS system is not just about the payment. It’s also about how they build menus in the background. The POS system gives you reports. It gives you an analysis of what you sold, when you sold it, what these stores are doing, what time of the day they’re busy, what time of the day they’re not busy, how to ask for whatever you’re ordering. It’s very complicated, right? So, the payment is just the last piece of the puzzle. So, when we choose a POS system, it’s not just about the payment system. It’s also about their functionality and how good they are as a system.”

To top it off, POS systems that integrate bitcoin would also have to support fiat currencies for them to be viable to normal merchants today, raising the barrier to entry and competition much further.

As a result, Tahini’s did the next best thing: They added Bitcoin ATMs to 10 of their restaurants in partnership with Bitcoin Well, a Canadian Bitcoin ATM company, opting to take in all profits from the machines in Bitcoin and allocating it to isolated accounts for each restaurant. Though Aly reports that these ATMs were only bringing in about $250 CAD a month, since 2021, these “sats flows” — as some people in the industry are calling them — add up, and with the price of bitcoin rising, each of those restaurants now has over $40,000 of bitcoin per corresponding restaurant, a very significant balance.

Nevertheless, Omar is optimistic that these barriers will fall, as interest in bitcoin payments is stronger than ever. “I think bitcoin is really growing at a rapid pace, and it’s being adopted now by a lot of companies, and people are learning more and more about Bitcoin, and they’re becoming much more aware about Bitcoin. So, I think it’s just a matter of time.”

This post Tahini’s Bitcoin Treasury: How a Family Chain Outsmarted Inflation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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Japan’s Metaplanet Acquires 1,234 More Bitcoin, Total Holdings Reach 12,345 BTC

Metaplanet Inc., widely recognized as Japan’s leading Bitcoin treasury company, has announced today the acquisition of an additional 1,234 Bitcoin, bringing its total holdings to 12,345 BTC. The purchase was valued at ¥19.27 billion at an average price of ¥15.6 million per Bitcoin.

Metaplanet has acquired 1,234 BTC for ~$132.7 million at ~$107,557 per bitcoin and has achieved BTC Yield of 315% YTD 2025. As of 6/26/2025, we hold 12,345 $BTC acquired for ~$1.20 billion at ~$97,036 per bitcoin. $MTPLF pic.twitter.com/vsnbCLGjZB

— Simon Gerovich (@gerovich) June 26, 2025

This acquisition is part of the company’s newly launched “555 Million Plan,” a strategy targeting the accumulation of 210,000 BTC by the end of 2027, equivalent to 1% of Bitcoin’s total supply. The initiative replaces the earlier “21 Million Plan,” which had aimed for 21,000 BTC by 2026.

BTC Yield, the company’s proprietary key performance indicator (KPI) tracking Bitcoin per fully diluted share, has continued to rise. It jumped from 41.7% in Q3 2024 to 112.2% quarter-to-date. This increase reflects a BTC Gain of 4,538 and a corresponding hypothetical BTC ¥ Gain of ¥71.2 billion, highlighting the effectiveness of the company’s capital allocation strategy.

Capital markets activity has played a central role in funding these purchases. Since January 2025, Metaplanet has executed a series of zero-coupon, non-interest-bearing bond issuances, raising more than ¥90 billion and USD 121 million. All issuances have been redeemed early, using proceeds from stock acquisition rights exercised under the now fully completed “210 Million Plan.”

“On June 25, 2025, the Company completed the early redemption and full repayment of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Series of zero-coupon, non-interest-bearing Ordinary Bonds issued to EVO FUND,” the company stated in the press release.

As of June 26, 2025, Metaplanet has expanded its issued common shares to over 654.7 million. This growing share base reflects the company’s strategy of using equity financing to convert capital directly into Bitcoin, reinforcing its commitment to becoming a long-term institutional holder of Bitcoin.

This post Japan’s Metaplanet Acquires 1,234 More Bitcoin, Total Holdings Reach 12,345 BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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Lightning Labs Releases Taproot Assets v0.6 With Updates to Stablecoin Support On Bitcoin

Today, Lightning Labs has announced it has released Taproot Assets v0.6, an update to the first multi-asset Lightning protocol on Bitcoin mainnet. The update improves how stablecoins can be minted, sent, and received over the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

We’re excited to release Taproot Assets v0.6 to make Lightning a decentralized FX layer for stablecoins on bitcoin.

With larger, more reliable transactions, we’re one step closer to trillions of dollars flowing on Lightning.

Read more below.

— Lightning Labs (@lightning) June 24, 2025

“We are incredibly grateful to the bitcoin and Lightning developer community for their support in providing feedback on the protocol, testing early versions of the software, and building the initial products for end users,” the company said. “We are continually impressed by the level of building and excitement from developers pushing Taproot Assets adoption forward.”

Since the last release, Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced that Tether is bringing USDT to Bitcoin, with support for both on-chain transactions and the Lightning Network. 

The release includes changes aimed at simplifying asset issuance and usage. Developers can now use the “–new_grouped_asset” option when minting to allow assets to share a “group_key” identifier. This ensures that tranches of the same asset remain interchangeable. Each batch still has a separate “asset_id,” but using a shared “group_key” simplifies handling for stablecoins with multiple tranches.

“Previously, when using Taproot Assets on Lightning, developers and users had to use the asset_id to fund channels, send, and receive payments,” stated the announcement. “With assets like stablecoins where there are multiple tranches, this asset_id-based workflow became cumbersome for developers to juggle. So, in the latest release, developers can now use the group_key identifier for all Lightning flows including funding a channel, paying an invoice, and receiving payments.”

The update also includes changes to the Request for Quote (RFQ) protocol. The software now handles “group_key” identifiers and lets users agree on time-limited price quotes with edge nodes using the existing BOLT 11 invoice format.

“As mentioned above, the Request for Quote (RFQ) functionality allows for the receiver of the payment to ask the node providing liquidity on Taproot Assets for a time-limited price quote between the relevant asset and bitcoin,” mentioned the announcement. “These edge nodes provide a critical service by converting assets to and from bitcoin at the edges of the network, enabling Taproot Assets on Lightning to act as a decentralized foreign exchange network.”

In previous releases, versions used a single edge node path for payments. The update allows receivers to use up to 20 inbound Taproot Assets channels, increasing routing options and supporting larger transactions.

This is big

Previously, when sending a payment, there was only one route to the recipient. If it failed, the payment failed.

Now, recipients can open up to 20 routes (or “channels”) to receive money, making payments much more reliable, especially for large amounts. … https://t.co/NbEl7VKglX

— Voltage (@voltage_cloud) June 24, 2025

This post Lightning Labs Releases Taproot Assets v0.6 With Updates to Stablecoin Support On Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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Sequans Launches $384M Bitcoin Treasury Initiative with Swan Bitcoin Partnership

Sequans Communications, a France-based developer of 5G and IoT semiconductor technology, has announced a move into Bitcoin with a new treasury initiative backed by a $384 million private placement.  

Swan Bitcoin is excited to advise Sequans (NYSE: SQNS) on its Bitcoin accumulation strategy and to manage the execution of our plans. We look forward to sharing more in a few weeks. https://t.co/iPZ3nOEz5r

— Cory Klippsten Swan.com (@coryklippsten) June 23, 2025

The funding includes $195 million in equity securities and $189 million in convertible secured notes. Sequans plans to allocate this capital toward building a Bitcoin position alongside its core IoT operations. 

“Our Bitcoin treasury strategy reflects our strong conviction in Bitcoin as a premier asset and a compelling long-term investment,” said Georges Karam, CEO of Sequans. “We believe Bitcoin’s unique characteristics will enhance our financial resilience and deliver significant value to our shareholders.” 

To guide its treasury strategy, Sequans is partnering with Swan Bitcoin, a U.S.-based firm specializing in Bitcoin custody, institutional liquidity, and investment strategy. Swan will help the company navigate the operational and security aspects of Bitcoin acquisition and storage. 

During the new initiative, Karam emphasized that Sequans remains committed to its primary mission. “We continue to support our customers with a robust 4G and 5G product roadmap, delivering innovative solutions to meet evolving IoT application needs and ensuring a seamless transition from 4G to 5G,” he said. 

Sequans will issue over 1.39 billion ordinary shares and warrants in the equity offering and additional warrants tied to the debt placement. The offering is expected to close by July 1, pending shareholder approval at a June 30 meeting.  

Placement agents include Northland Capital Markets, B. Riley Securities, and Yorkville Securities. Legal counsel includes Lowenstein Sandler LLP (U.S.) and ARCHERS (France) for Sequans, and Goodwin Procter LLP for the agents.  

The move aligns Sequans with a growing trend of public companies leveraging Bitcoin as a treasury asset—a strategy popularized by firms like Strategy and Semler Scientific. Sequans currently holds a market cap of around $40 million. Its shares dropped 12% to $1.62 in Monday trading following the announcement.    

This post Sequans Launches $384M Bitcoin Treasury Initiative with Swan Bitcoin Partnership first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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Fintech Company DigiAsia Corp to Launch Bitcoin Treasury Strategy 

DigiAsia Corp, a leading Southeast Asian Fintech-as-a-Service platform, has signed an indicative term sheet for up to $3 million in non-recourse debt financing to kickstart its Bitcoin treasury acquisition strategy. The funding comes from High West Capital Partners and is expected to close within 45 days. 

JUST IN: DigiAsia Corp $FAAS will use $3 million in non-recourse debt financing for initial #bitcoin purchase. They hope to raise up to $100 million in capital for their Bitcoin Treasury Strategy. pic.twitter.com/Dfdhvn4Jyt

— NLNico (@btcNLNico) June 23, 2025

The $3 million facility represents the first phase of DigiAsia’s ambitious $100 million Bitcoin treasury program, originally announced in May 2025. The non-recourse debt structure allows the company to begin accumulating Bitcoin without diluting existing shareholders’ equity positions. 

DigiAsia plans to complement this initial funding with a separate $100 million equity raise dedicated exclusively to purchasing Bitcoin. The company is working with placement agent D. Boral Capital to engage institutional investors seeking exposure to blockchain-aligned treasury strategies through regulated public markets. 

“This facility reflects disciplined execution and early momentum toward our digital asset reserve vision,” said Prashant Gokarn, Co-CEO of DigiAsia Corp. “We view Bitcoin as a long-term strategic asset and are committed to building a yield-optimized, institutionally compliant treasury that enhances our balance sheet strength.” 

DigiAsia expects to begin Bitcoin purchases in the third quarter of 2025, with plans to provide regular updates on treasury operations and custody architecture. The company’s modular B2B2X API platform already supports crypto-compatible infrastructure, positioning it to integrate Bitcoin holdings into its financial technology system. 

The announcement comes as corporate Bitcoin adoption continues expanding globally, with companies increasingly viewing the digital asset as a hedge against inflation and currency debasement. DigiAsia’s regulated status as a NASDAQ-listed entity provides institutional investors with traditional market access to Bitcoin treasury exposure. 

DigiAsia’s Bitcoin treasury initiative builds on its existing fintech operations, which deliver AI-enhanced financial services bridging traditional and digital economies across its geographic footprint. 

This post Fintech Company DigiAsia Corp to Launch Bitcoin Treasury Strategy  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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A Seed Phrase Isn’t Self Custody, It’s A Liability.

For as long as bitcoin has existed, self-custody–the ability to transact with and hold your own wealth without the need for a third party intermediary like a bank or other financial institution–has been central to the offer. 

For some, self custody is a firmly-held belief in the right to “be your own bank.” For others, it’s a practical step taken to safeguard a valuable asset that can be–and has been–lost to exchange hacks, mismanagement, or FTX-style collapse. A bit like keeping a safe full of cash at home, if there’s a run on the “bank,” your coins are immune. 

And while the “how” of self custody has changed forms throughout bitcoin’s history, today’s de facto industry standard for recovery–the seed phrase–often leaves users at a (sometimes enormous) loss when things go wrong. 

A Distinction Without A Difference

In the early days of bitcoin, there was only self custody. At the risk of oversimplying, self custody meant managing private key material–a string of 64 random characters that gave whoever held it access to the underlying bitcoin. Tools for managing private keys were pretty limited: memorize them or write them down and store them somewhere safe. But put just one character out of place, and oops, your key doesn’t work. Even if you do everything right, there’s still the very real possibility of loss–to theft, accident, or disaster. 

Seed phrases meant to make private keys easier to manage. Instead of securing long strings of random characters, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-39 (BIP-39) let a handful of simple words essentially stand in for a private key. As long as you have the right sequence of words, you’ll always get the same private key and have access to your funds. 

While it is definitely easier to deal with a few common words than a long string of characters, the risk of loss through human error, theft, or disaster is essentially the same with a seed phrase as it ever was with private keys. For anyone who has lost a backup when they really needed it, it’s a distinction without a difference. When it’s gone, it’s gone, and there’s no getting it back. 

Moving Beyond Stone Age Security For Space Age Assets 

Somewhere along the way, the whole idea of self-custody became synonymous with seed phrases in a lot of people’s minds. But self custody isn’t an object; it’s a capability. And seed phrases are a lot more liability than they are capability. 

Sure, a seed phrase lets you regenerate your keys or easily move your funds to another wallet, but it lets anyone who sees it even briefly do that, too. It’s a nuclear option–one that grants anyone who holds it access to its entire payload. That’s why most people who use them are forced to rely on pretty archaic security measures to protect them: bury them, use book ciphers, distribute copies and bury those, stamp them on increasingly heat-resistant alloys, and so on. 

But the idea that the height of security for digital cash could be anything close to burying a coffee can in the backyard borders on the absurd. That’s stone age security for a space age asset. And the idea that most people’s only recovery tool is something they themselves can pretty easily lose begs the question: if you can lose it easily, is it even a recovery tool at all?

Managing a seed phrase might be better than dealing with private key material, but it still isn’t good–not for security or safety, not for user experience, and ultimately not for bitcoin’s growth and widespread adoption.

The Future Of Money Should Work Like The Future Of Money

Bitcoin itself began as, and is intended to be, electronic cash. It is ultimately software, meant to run to be used. For too many people, securing it has become a source of great anxiety and practical difficulty. There’s a better way.

The future of money should feel like and work like and ultimately be secured like the future of money, not money’s long ago past. It should open up new capabilities, inspire confidence, be intuitive and even pleasant to use–and you shouldn’t lose access to your coins just because you make a typo or lose a slip of paper. 

Even hardcore, self-sovereign bitcoiners will admit: seed phrases are a pain. They’re a clunky stopgap and were never meant to be the end game for an ostensibly digital currency. We should stop treating them like they’re the defining characteristic of self custody. 

This is a guest post by Max Guise. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post A Seed Phrase Isn’t Self Custody, It’s A Liability. first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Max Guise.

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Semler Scientific Appoints Joe Burnett as Director of Bitcoin Strategy, Targets 105,000 BTC by 2027

Semler Scientific, the second U.S. publicly traded company to adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset, has appointed Joe Burnett as Director of Bitcoin Strategy while announcing a Bitcoin accumulation plan. The healthcare technology company targets holding 10,000 Bitcoin by year end 2025, 42,000 by 2026, and 105,000 by 2027. 

$SMLR appoints Joe Burnett @IIICapital as Director of Bitcoin Strategy. Announces three-year plan to own 105,000 #Bitcoins by Year-End 2027. So fired up to have Joe on board to help with this exciting new chapter in Semler’s $BTC mission.

— Eric Semler (@SemlerEric) June 19, 2025

The announcement comes as Semler continues expanding its Bitcoin holdings. The company recently acquired 185 Bitcoin between May 23 and June 3 for $20 million, bringing total holdings to 4,449 BTC worth approximately $446.2 million at current prices. 

“We are excited to have Joe join our Bitcoin strategy team and help drive our three-year-plan to own 105,000 Bitcoins,” said Eric Semler, chairman of Semler Scientific. “Joe is an analytical thought leader on Bitcoin and Bitcoin treasury companies. His expertise will be instrumental as we pursue our Bitcoin treasury strategy and aim to deliver long-term value to our stockholders.” 

Since adopting its Bitcoin Standard in May 2024, Semler has “achieved approximately 287% BTC Yield and a $177 million BTC $ Gain through June 3, 2025,” Semler noted. The company currently reports a year-to-date BTC Yield of 26.7%. 

As former director of market research at Unchained, Burnett contributed to helping institutional Bitcoin adoption by providing collaborative custody solutions. He previously served as head analyst at Blockware Solutions, helping launch one of the largest Bitcoin mining platforms in the United States. 

“We are witnessing the global monetization of Bitcoin as a superior form of money,” said Burnett. “The trend to adopt Bitcoin as part of corporate treasury is clearly accelerating. Semler Scientific, as the 2nd U.S. public company to adopt the Bitcoin Standard, has been at the forefront of this movement.” 

Semler’s Bitcoin strategy involves using proceeds from equity and debt financings plus operational cash flows. Since launching its market offering program in April 2025, the company has raised approximately $136.2 million through stock sales. 

The company has acquired 4,449 Bitcoin for $410.0 million at an average price of $92,158 per Bitcoin. “We continue to accretively grow our Bitcoin arsenal using operating cash flow and proceeds from debt and equity financings,” Semler stated. 

This post Semler Scientific Appoints Joe Burnett as Director of Bitcoin Strategy, Targets 105,000 BTC by 2027 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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3 Misconceptions About US Debt

A version of this newsletter was originally published on lynalden.com.

This newsletter issue analyzes three common misconceptions about the US federal debt and deficits.

The ongoing nature of the deficits has several investment implications, but along the way it’s important to not get distracted by things that don’t add up.

Fiscal Debt and Deficits 101

Before I jump into the misconceptions, it’s useful to quickly remind what the debt and deficits are, specifically.

-In most years, the US federal government spends more than it receives in tax revenue. That difference is the annual deficit. We can see the deficit over time here, both in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP:

-As the US federal government runs deficits over years and decades, they add up to the total outstanding debt. That’s the stock of debt that the US federal government owes to lenders, which they pay interest on. When some of their bonds mature, they issue new ones to help pay back the old ones.

A couple of weeks ago at a conference in Las Vegas, I gave a keynote talk about the US fiscal debt situation (available here), which serves as an easy 20-minute summary of the situation.

My view for a while, as outlined in that talk and for years now, is that US fiscal deficits will be quite large for the foreseeable future. I’ve discussed that in numerous pieces and formats, but my September 2024 newsletter was the most detailed breakdown of it, along with Sam Callahan’s January 2025 report.

Misconception 1) We Owe it to Ourselves

A common phrase, popularized by Paul Krugman and others, is that “we owe the debt to ourselves”. Proponents of Modern Monetary Theory often make similar statements, e.g. saying that the cumulative debt outstanding is mainly just a tally of surpluses that have been given to the private sector.

The unsaid implications from this is that the debt isn’t a big deal. Another potential implication is that maybe we could selectively default on portions of it, since it’s just “owed to ourselves”. Let’s examine those two parts separately.

Who It’s Owed To

The federal government owes money to US Treasury security holders. That includes entities in foreign countries, includes US institutions, and includes US individuals. And of course, those entities have specific amounts of treasuries. The government of Japan, for example, is owed a lot more dollars than me, even though we both own treasuries.

If you, me, and eight other people go out to dinner in a big 10-person group, we owe a bill at the end. If we all ate different amounts of food, then we likely don’t have the same liabilities here. The cost generally has to be split in fair ways.

Now in practice for that dinner example, it’s not a big deal because dinner groups are usually friendly with each other, and people are willing to graciously cover others in that group. But in a country of 340 million people living within 130 million different households, it’s no small matter. If you divide $36 trillion in federal debt by 130 million households, you get $277,000 per household in federal debt debt. Do you consider that your household’s fair share? If not, how do we tally that up?

Put another way, if you have $1 million worth of treasuries in your retirement account, and I have $100,000 worth of treasuries in my retirement account, yet both of us are taxpayers, then while in some sense “we owe it to ourselves”, it’s certainly not in equal measure.

In other words, the numbers and proportions do matter. Bondholders expect (often incorrectly) that their bonds will retain purchasing power. Taxpayers expect (again often incorrectly) their government to maintain sound fundamentals in its currency and taxing and spending. That seems obvious, but sometimes needs to be clarified anyway.

We have a shared ledger, and we have a division of powers about how that ledger is managed. Those rules can change over time, but the overall reliability of that ledger is why the world uses it.

Can We Selectively Default?

Individuals, businesses, and countries that owe debt denominated in units that they cannot print (e.g. gold ounces or someone else’s currency) can indeed default if they lack sufficient cashflows or assets to cover their liabilities. However, developed country governments, whose debt is usually denominated in their own currency that they can print, rarely default nominally. The far easier path for them is to print money and debase the debt away relative to the country’s economic output and scarcer assets.

Myself and many others would argue that a major currency devaluation is a type of default. In that sense, the US government defaulted on bondholders in the 1930s by devaluating the dollar vs gold, and then again in the 1970s by decoupling the dollar from gold entirely. The 2020-2021 period was also a type of default, in the sense that the broad money supply increased by 40% in a rapid period of time, and bondholders had their worst bear market in over a century, with greatly decreased purchasing power relative to virtually every other asset.

But technically, a country could also default nominally, even if it doesn’t have to. Rather than spreading the pain out with debasement to all bondholders and currency holders, they could instead just default on unfriendly entities, or entities that are in a position to withstand it, thus sparing currency holders broadly, and the bondholders that were not defaulted on. That’s a serious possibility worth considering in such a geopolitically strained world.

And so the real question is: are there certain entities for which defaulting has limited consequences?

There are some entities that have very large and obvious consequences if they are defaulted on:

-If the government defaults on retirees, or the asset managers holding treasuries on behalf of retirees, then it would impair their ability to support themselves after a lifetime of work, and we’d see seniors in the streets in protest.

-If the government defaults on insurance companies, then it impairs their ability to pay out insurance claims, thus hurting American citizens in a similarly bad way.

-If the government defaults on banks, it’ll render them insolvent, and consumer bank deposits won’t be fully backed by assets.

And of course, most of those entities (the ones that survive) would refuse to ever buy a treasury again.

That leaves some lower-hanging fruit. Are there some entities that the government could default on, which might hurt less and not be as existential as those options? The possibilities are generally foreigners and the Fed, so let’s analyze those separately.

Analysis: Defaulting on Foreigners

Foreign entities hold about $9 trillion in US treasuries currently, out of $36 trillion in debt outstanding. So, about a quarter of it.

And of that $9 trillion, about $4 trillion is held by sovereign entities and $5 trillion is held by foreign private entities.

The prospect for defaulting on specific foreign entities certainly jumped higher in recent years. In the past, the US froze sovereign assets of Iran and Afghanistan, but those were considered small and extreme enough to not count as any sort of “real” default. However, in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, the US and its allies in Europe and elsewhere froze Russian reserves totaling over $300 billion. A freeze isn’t quite the same as a default (it depends on the ultimate fate of the assets), but it’s pretty close to one.

Since that time, foreign central banks have become pretty big gold buyers. Gold represents an asset that they can custody themselves, and thus is protected against default and confiscation, while also being hard to debase.

The vast majority of foreign-held US debt is held within friendly countries and allies. These are countries like Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, and so forth. Some of them like Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Ireland are haven areas where plenty of institutions set up shop and hold Treasuries. So, some of these foreign holders are actually US-based entities that are incorporated in those types of places.

China has less than $800 billion in treasuries now, which is only about 5 months worth of US deficit spending. They’re near the top of the potential “selective default” risk spectrum, and they’re aware of it.

If the US were to default at a large scale on these types of entities, it would greatly impair the ability for the US to convince foreign entities to hold their treasuries for a long time. The freezing of Russian reserves already sent a signal that countries responded to, but in that instance they had the cover of a literal invasion. Defaulting on debt held by non-aggressive nations would be seen as a clear and obvious default.

So, this isn’t a particularly viable option overall, although there are certain pockets where it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Analysis: Defaulting on the Fed

The other option is that the Treasury could default on the treasuries that the US Federal Reserve holds. That’s a little over $4 trillion currently. After all, that’s the closest version of “we owe it to ourselves” right?

There are major problems with that, too.

The Fed, like any bank, has assets and liabilities. Their primary liabilities are 1) physical currency and 2) bank reserves owed to commercial banks. Their primary assets are 1) treasuries and 2) mortgage-backed securities. Their assets pay them interest, and they pay interest on bank reserves in order to set an interest rate floor and slow down banks’ incentive to lend and create more broad money.

Currently, the Fed is sitting on major unrealized losses (hundreds of billions) and is paying out more interest than they receive each week. If they were a normal bank, they’d experience a bank run and be shut down. But because they’re the central bank, nobody can do a bank run on them, so they can operate at a loss for a very long time. They’ve racked up over $230 billion in cumulative net interest losses over the past three years:

If the Treasury were to totally default on the Fed, it would render them massively insolvent on a realized basis (they’d have trillions more in liabilities than in assets), but as the central bank they’d still be able to avoid a bank run. Their weekly net interest losses would be even greater, because they’d have lost most of their interest income at that point (since they’d only have their mortgage backed securities).

The main problem with this approach is that it would impair any notion of central bank independence. The central bank is supposed to be mostly separate from the executive branch, and so for example the President can’t cut interest rates before an election and raise interest rates afterward, and do shenanigans like that. The President and Congress put the Fed’s board of governors in place with long terms of service, but then from there the Fed has its own budget, is generally supposed to run profitably, and support itself. A defaulted-on Fed is an unprofitable Fed, and with major negative equity. That’s a Fed that is no longer independent, and doesn’t even have the illusion of being independent.

One potential way to mitigate this is to eliminate the Fed’s interest payments to commercial banks on their bank reserves. However, that interest is there for a reason. It is part of how the Fed sets an interest rate floor in an ample-reserves environment. Congress could pass legislation that 1) forces banks to hold a certain percentage of their assets in reserves and 2) eliminates the Fed’s ability to pay them interest on those reserves. That would push more of the problem toward commercial banks.

That last option is one of the more viable paths, with contained consequences. Bank investors (rather than depositors) would be impaired, and the Fed’s ability to influence interest rates and bank lending volumes would be impaired, but it wouldn’t be an overnight disaster. However, the Fed only holds about two years’ worth of federal deficits, or about 12% of total federal debt outstanding, so that somewhat extreme financial repression scenario would just be a bandage for the problem.

In short, we do not owe the debt to ourselves. The federal government owes it to specific entities, domestic and international, who would be impaired in consequential ways if defaulted on, and many of those ways would ricochet back into hurting both the federal government and US taxpayers.

Misconception 2) People Have Been Saying This for Decades

Another common thing you’ll hear about the debt and deficit is that people have been calling it a problem for decades, and it has been fine enough. The implication from this view is that the debt and deficit are not a big deal, and those that say it’s a big deal end up prematurely “calling wolf” over and over again and can be safely ignored.

Like many misconceptions, there is a grain of truth here.

As I’ve pointed out before, the “peak zeitgeist” for the idea that the federal debt and deficit is a problem was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The famous “debt clock” was put up in New York in the late 1980s, and Ross Perot ran the most successful independent presidential campaign in modern history (19% of the popular vote) largely on the topic of debt and deficits. This was back when interest rates were very high, and so interest expense was a big share of GDP:

People who called for the debt to spiral out of control back then were indeed wrong. Things were fine for decades. Two main things happened that allowed that to be the case. The first is that the opening of China in the 1980s and the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s were very deflationary forces for the world. Massive amounts of eastern labor and resources were able to connect with western capital, and bring a ton of new supply of everything to the world. The second is that, partially because of this, interest rates were able to keep heading lower, which made interest expense on the growing total stock of debt more manageable in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

So yes, if someone was talking about the debt being an imminent problem 35 years ago and is still talking about it today, I can see why someone would choose to just kind of tune them out.

However, people should not fall too far in the other direction, and assume that since it didn’t matter in this period of time, that it won’t matter ever. That would be a fallacy.

Multiple trend changes happened in the late 2010s. Interest rates hit zero and since then are no longer in a structural downtrend. Baby Boomers started retiring, leading to the Social Security trust reaching peak levels and entering drawdown mode, and globalization reached a potential peak, with thirty years of western capital and eastern labor/resources connecting together being largely finished (and now potentially reversing slightly around the margins).

Some trend changes, visualized:

We’re not at the point where the debt or deficits are going to cause a massive train wreck any time soon. However, we are well into the era where the deficits do matter and have consequences.

For six years now, after seeing the opening stages of some of these trend changes, I’ve been emphasizing fiscal spending as an increasingly big portion of macroeconomics and investment decisions in modern times. It has been my primary “north star” when trying to navigate this rather hectic macro environment over the years.

Taking the debt and deficit seriously since these trend changes began occurring has been a good way to 1) not be surprised by some of the things that have happened and 2) run a portfolio more successfully than a typical 60/40 stock/bond portfolio.

-My 2019 article “Are We in a Bond Bubble?” was the prologue. My conclusion was that yes, we’re likely in a bond bubble, that the combo of fiscal spending and central bank debt monetization can be a lot more impactful and inflationary than people seem to believe, and that such a thing is likely coming in the next downturn. In early 2020 I wrote “The Subtle Risks of Treasury Bonds” which warned about severe debasement. Bonds went on to have their worst bear market in over a century in the 5-6 years since those pieces.

-During the depths of the disinflationary shock in March 2020, I wrote “Why This is Unlike the Great Depression” which emphasized how massive fiscal stimulus (i.e. deficits) was starting, and would likely get us back to nominal stock highs faster than people think, albeit at the likely cost of high inflation.

-For the rest of 2020, I followed it up with a series of articles such as “QE, MMT, and Inflation/Deflation”, “A Century of Fiscal and Monetary Policy” and “Banks, QE, and Money-Printing” which explored why the huge combo of fiscal stimulus and central bank support would be significantly different than the bank recapitalization QE of 2008/2009. In short, the thesis was that this was more like inflationary 1940s war finance than deflationary 1930s private debt deleveraging, thus a position of equities and hard monies would be better than bonds. As a bond bear, I spent a lot of time debating bond bulls on this subject.

-By spring 2021, stocks had already jumped a ton and price inflation indeed began to break out. My May 2021 newsletter “Fiscal-Driven Inflation” described and projected the issue further.

-The year 2022 was the one year where I got quite cautious around the idea of fiscal consolidation and potential recession, as price inflation reached its peak and pandemic-era fiscal stimulus wore off. My January 2022 newsletter “The Capital Sponge” was one of my early framings of the scene. Most of 2022 was indeed a bad year for broad asset prices and the economy slowed considerably, but by most metrics a recession was avoided due to what started happening later in the year.

-By late 2022 and particularly by early 2023, fiscal deficits were expanding again, in significant part due to ballooning interest expense on the public debt amid the rapid increase in interest rates. The Treasury General Account was draining liquidity back into the banking system, the Treasury Department shifted toward excess T-bill issuance which was a pro-liquidity move to pull money out of the reverse repo facility and back into the banking system, and overall it was “game on” again in terms of deficit expansion. My July 2023 newsletter was called “Fiscal Dominance” and focused on this topic.

-By October 2023, federal fiscal year 2023 was in the books (which runs from October 2022 through September 2023) with a new nominal deficit increase, and I started my “nothing stops this train” meme about the subject (originally from the show Breaking Bad but in this context referring to US fiscal deficits) with this tweet:

I keep highlighting it, because it gets the point across effectively:

My point here is that we are now firmly in an era where the total stock of debt and ongoing federal deficits have real impact. Depending on whether you’re on the receiving side of those deficits or not, you might feel those deficits have more positive or negative impacts, but nonetheless they have impacts. Those impacts are able to be measured and reasoned about, and thus have economic and investment implications.

Misconception 3) The Dollar Will Collapse Soon

The prior two misconceptions countered the broad idea that the debt doesn’t matter.

This third one is a bit different because it counters the notion that things are going to blow up tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.

People that claim things will blow up soon tend to fall into one of two camps. The first camp is that they benefit from sensationalism, clicks, and so forth. The second camp is that they genuinely misunderstand the situation. Many people in the second camp don’t do a lot of analysis on foreign markets to see truly how much it takes for a sovereign bond market to blow up.

The US is running 7% of GDP deficits, more or less. As I’ve argued numerous times, that’s mostly structural and very hard to meaningfully reduce now or for the next decade. However, it’s not 70% of GDP deficits. Magnitude matters.

There are some important metrics to quantify here.

-The federal government has a bit over $36 trillion in debt. To put that in context, US households collectively have $180 trillion in assets, or $160 trillion in net worth after liabilities (mostly mortgages) are subtracted. However, since we do not “owe it to ourselves”, this is somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison, but it’s helpful for putting large numbers into context.

-The US monetary base is about $6 trillion. There is over $120 trillion worth of dollar-denominated loans and bonds outstanding in total (public and private, domestic and international, excluding derivatives). In the foreign sector alone, there is about $18 trillion worth of dollar-denominated debt, which is 3x as much as there are base dollars in existence.

What this means is that there is an incredibly large amount of inflexible demand for dollars domestically and throughout the world. Everyone who owes dollars, needs dollars.

When a country like Turkey or Argentina hyperinflates or nearly-so, it’s in a context where practically nobody outside of their country needs their lira or pesos. There’s no entrenched demand for their currency. And so, if their currency becomes undesirable for any reason (usually due to rapid money supply growth), it’s very easy to just repudiate it and send its value to Hades.

The same is not true for the dollar. All of that $18 trillion in foreign-owed debt represents inflexible demand for dollars. Most of that is not owed to the US (the US is a net debtor nation), but the foreigners do not “owe that debt to themselves” either. Countless specific entities around the world contractually owe countless other specific entities around the world a certain number of dollars by a certain date in time, and thus need to constantly try to get their hands on dollars.

The fact that they collectively owe more dollars than there are base dollars in existence is important. That’s why the monetary base can double, triple, or more, and not be outright hyperinflationary. It’s still a small increase relative to how much contractual demand there is for dollars. When outstanding debt greatly exceeds the number of base units, it takes a ton of printing of base units to render that base unit worthless.

In other words, people severely underestimate how much money supply growth the United States can experience before it would result in a true dollar crisis. It’s not hard to create politically problematic levels of inflation or other issues, but creating a true crisis is another story.

Think of the debt and deficit as being a dial, not a switch. Many people ask “when will it matter?” as though it’s a light switch where it goes from not a problem to a catastrophe. But the answer is that it’s usually a dial. It already matters now. We’re already running things hot. The Fed’s ability to modulate the growth of total new credit is already impaired, thus putting them into a state of fiscal dominance. But the rest of that dial has a lot of room to turn before it truly reaches the end.

That’s why I use the phrase “nothing stops this train”. The deficits are more intractable than the bulls think, meaning it’s very improbable that the US federal government is going to get them under control any time soon. But on the other hand, it’s not as imminent as bears think; it is unlikely to cause an outright dollar crisis any time soon. It’s a very long slow motion train wreck. A dial gradually being turned more and more.

Sure, we can have mini-crises, similar to the 2022 UK Gilt Crisis. And when they happen, a few hundred billion dollars can generally put out the fire at the cost of debasement.

Suppose that bond yields break out to the point of rendering banks insolvent or the Treasury market acutely illiquid. The Fed can step in with QE or yield suppression. Yes, that comes with the cost of potential price inflation and has implications for asset prices, but no, it’s not hyperinflationary in this context.

In the long arc of time, yes the dollar will face major problems. But nothing indicates catastrophic issues in the near-term unless we rip ourselves apart socially and politically (which would be a separate matter than the numbers, and thus is outside of the scope of this article).

Here is some more context. The US had 82% cumulative broad money supply growth over the past decade. Egypt had 638% broad money supply growth during that same time period. And the Egyptian pound underperformed the dollar by approximately that ratio; a decade ago a US dollar was worth a bit under 8 Egyptian pounds, and today it’s worth a bit over 50 Egyptian pounds. Egyptians dealt with double-digit price inflation for most years in this decade.

I spend part of each year living in Egypt. Things haven’t been easy there. They have recurring energy shortages and economic stagnation. But life goes on. Even that level of currency debasement was not enough to give them an outright crisis, especially with entities like the IMF around to keep them mostly on the tracks toward ever-more debt and debasement.

Imagine how much it would take to put the dollar into that situation, let alone a worse situation, when keeping in mind how much inflexible demand there is for dollars. When people think the dollar is going to collapse soon, I generally assume they haven’t traveled much and/or haven’t studied other currencies. Things can go a lot further than people think and still be semi-functional.

For some more figures, China had 145% broad money supply growth over the past decade. Brazil had 131%. India had 183%.

Put another way, the dollar is not going to jump straight from a developed market currency to a collapsed one. Along the way, it has to go through “developing market syndrome”. Foreign demand for the dollar may weaken over time. Ongoing budget deficits and an increasingly captured Fed may result in gradually accelerating money supply growth and financial repression. Our structural trade deficit provides us with a currency vulnerability that countries with structural trade surpluses don’t have. But we’re starting from a developed market base with an entrenched global network effect, and as things get worse, our currency could resemble the currency of a developing market in many ways. It could look more like Brazil’s currency, then Egypt’s, then Turkey’s, over quite a long timeframe. It doesn’t jump from being the US dollar to the Venezuelan bolivar in the course of a year or even five years, short of something like a nuclear strike or a civil war.

Putting this all together, the spiraling US debt and deficit situation does indeed have increasingly real consequences, both in the present and forward into the future. It’s not ignorable like the “everything is fine” camp would have you believe, nor is it as imminently catastrophic as the sensationalist side would have you believe. It’s most likely an intractable issue that is going to be with us as a background factor to deal with for quite a long time, and investors and economists need to take that into account if they’re going to make accurate calls.

Final Thoughts: Bitcoin Checkup

According to most indicators that I track, I continue to view bitcoin as likely having higher to go in this cycle before the supply/demand balance becomes exhausted and has a big shake-out.

Bitcoin has certainly come a long way. On the surface, $103,000 would perhaps even seem expensive. I publicly recommended it at under $10k in 2020, and haven’t let up since. Shouldn’t I take profits at this point? Over five years later and up tremendously?

While I do rebalance in my model portfolios, I don’t sell any of my cold-storage bitcoin, which represents the bulk of my position. One reason for that is because even at this seemingly high price level, the whole Bitcoin network is barely worth more than $2 trillion.

This is in a world of about $1 quadrillion worth of assets across all asset classes. Gold is estimated to be worth about $20 trillion, or 2% of estimated assets. Bitcoin is a tenth of that, or around 0.2% of assets. As the network effect continues to grow, and as the resilience of the technology continues to be tested in a variety of ways, I think it has a lot further to grow as long as it avoids certain tail risk outcomes that would impair its actual functioning.

In prior cycles, bitcoin had big blow-off tops in terms of market value relative to on-chain cost basis. This current cycle has been more gradual so far, which makes sense given that it’s a larger and more liquid asset now. Periods of mild overexuberance have been met by six-month consolidations to let off some steam, and then it would grind up to the next level.

As total credit in the US and global system continues to grow over the next five or ten years, scarce assets at reasonable valuations are likely to continue to be worthwhile things to own. This can include high-quality equities, real estate in non-bubbly markets, precious metals, and bitcoin.

Best regards,

This post 3 Misconceptions About US Debt first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Lyn Alden.

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Bitcoin Magazine

The Trolls Are Coming: Defending Bitcoin Mining from Patent Trolls

Introduction: Patent Trolls Targeting Bitcoin Mining

Bitcoin’s use of elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which is essential for generating key pairs and validating digital signatures, has drawn the attention of a nonpracticing entity (NPE), more commonly known as a patent troll. In May 2025, Malikie Innovations Ltd., a troll that acquired thousands of patents from BlackBerry’s portfolio, filed lawsuits against major mining firms Core Scientific (CORZ) and Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA). (Some considered MARA an original patent troll itself and thus have expressed schadenfreude at the current attacks.) Malikie claims that routine Bitcoin operations (like verifying transactions with ECC-based signatures) infringe on several ECC-related patents originally developed by Certicom (later owned by BlackBerry). The patents cover techniques for accelerated digital signature verification, finite field math optimizations and other ECC improvements.

Malikie’s lawsuits, in Texas’ Eastern District against CORZ and Western District against MARA, demand damages for past infringement and an injunction against further use of the patented methods. In essence, Malikie seeks to impose a licensing regime on Bitcoin’s core cryptographic functions, a move that could set a dangerous precedent for the entire industry. If Malikie succeeds, virtually anyone running Bitcoin software (miners, node operators and potentially even wallet providers) could be exposed to patent liability. This threat has galvanized the Bitcoin and open source communities to explore every available defensive tool. In this preparatory briefing, we examine: 

1. Historical legal strategies used to fend off troll lawsuits. 
2. The mechanics, costs and effectiveness of Inter Partes Review (IPR) in challenging software/crypto patents. 
3. Community-led responses (EFF, Linux Foundation, COPA, etc.) that help defendants by funding prior-art searches or legal defenses. 
4. The potential ramifications for Bitcoin mining if Malikie’s claims prevail, drawing parallels from other industries.

1. Historical Strategies Against NPE Patent Lawsuits

Over the past two decades, tech companies and industries have developed several tactics to combat patent trolls. Key strategies include challenging patent validity, shifting lawsuits to favorable venues via declaratory judgment actions, leveraging recent case law to dismiss abstract patents and simply refusing to settle in order to deter trolls.

While not all strategies will apply to these cases, for completeness I’ll outline these approaches:

Rigorous Invalidity Challenges (Prior Art – §102/103): The most direct way to neutralize a troll’s patent is to demonstrate that the patent should never have been granted in the first place because earlier technology already taught the same invention. Defendants search for prior art — such as earlier publications, academic papers, standards (RFCs) or open source code — that predate the patent’s priority date and disclose the claimed invention. If a single prior art reference embodies every element of a patent claim, the claim is “anticipated” (invalid for lack of novelty under 35 U.S.C. §102). If no one reference is complete but a combination of references would have been obvious to a skilled person, the claim is invalid for obviousness (§103). In the Malikie cases, for example, Bitcoiners have been called to urgently collect publications from before January 18, 2005 (the priority date of one asserted patent, U.S. 8,788,827), and before December 31, 2001 (for U.S. 7,372,960). to prove the patented ECC techniques were already known. The Bitcoin community has noted that Hal Finney and others actively tracked ECC patents and even delayed certain optimizations in Bitcoin until patents expired — for instance, the famed “GLV endomorphism” speedup was only added to Bitcoin Core after its patent lapsed (and caution on the GLV issue was taken by developers, which Malikie itself acknowledged in its complaint — paragraphs 20 and 21 of the MARA complaint, for instance). Unearthing such prior art may not only win the case at hand but invalidate the patent for everyone.

• Inter Partes Review (IPR) and Post-Grant Proceedings: Beyond raising invalidity in court, since 2012 defendants have relied on IPR at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as a powerful forum to knock out bad patents. IPR is an administrative trial within the U.S. Patent Office where challengers can present prior patents or publications to show a granted patent is invalid. We detail IPR’s mechanics in Section 2, but historically it has been a favored tool against NPEs because of its high success rate (around 70%+ of patents see claims canceled when reviewed) and lower burden of proof (“preponderance of the evidence,” 51%, rather than the “clear and convincing,” 75%, standard in court). Companies sued by trolls often file IPR petitions early and then move to stay (or pause) the litigation pending the PTAB’s decision — a stay which many courts grant once an IPR is instituted, given the likelihood that the patent may be invalidated. Notably, in the landmark Personal Audio “podcasting patent” case, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an IPR that successfully invalidated a troll’s patent on podcast distribution, even as the troll was suing podcasters in East Texas. That IPR, funded by over a thousand small donations from the community, culminated in the Patent Office canceling all claims of the patent in 2015, a result later affirmed on appeal. This victory protected not just the sued targets (like comedian Adam Carolla) but all podcasters going forward. Similarly, the best path for the Bitcoin ecosystem may be to file IPR (or the related Post-Grant Review) against Malikie’s ECC patents, leveraging the mountain of cryptography literature from the 1990s and early 2000s to demonstrate that Bitcoin’s use of ECC was not novel to Malikie’s assignors.
• Declaratory Judgment (DJ) Actions: Another defensive tactic is to preempt the troll by filing a declaratory judgment lawsuit in a preferred court, seeking a ruling that your product does not infringe or that the patent is invalid. Under U.S. law, a company that feels threatened by a patent (e.g., it received a demand letter or sees peers being sued) can sometimes sue first if it can show a substantial controversy. The goal is to avoid being haled into the NPE’s chosen venue (historically, the Eastern District of Texas was favored by trolls) and instead litigate in a more neutral or defendant-friendly forum. For instance, when notorious troll Lodsys threatened dozens of small app developers over in-app purchase patents, one strategy (supported indirectly by Apple and Google) was to seek declaratory rulings outside of East Texas to undermine the troll’s jurisdiction. In practice, DJ actions can prompt a faster resolution or even settlement on better terms. However, the patent owner must have made a concrete infringement assertion to establish the requisite “case or controversy.” In Malikie’s situation, if other Bitcoin companies (exchanges, wallet providers, smaller miners) suspect they are next in line, those companies could file a declaratory suit in a jurisdiction of their choice. This would flip the script, making Malikie the defendant and potentially consolidating the fight in a forum less favorable to NPEs.
• Motions to Dismiss Under Alice (35 U.S.C. §101): Since the 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision, many software patents have been invalidated early in litigation for claiming unpatentable abstract ideas. Courts now examine whether a patent is directed to a fundamental abstract idea (like a mathematical formula) without an “inventive concept.” Defendants often file Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss, arguing the patent is invalid on its face under §101. While cryptographic algorithms can be viewed as mathematical computations (a classic abstract idea), success with an Alice motion depends on how the patent claims are drafted. If the claims merely cover a generalized math formula or the concept of using ECC on a computer, a judge could void them as abstract. Indeed, some defendants have beaten trolls this way, sparing the cost of trial. In Malikie’s case, their patents seem to cover specific techniques to speed up ECC computations (like endomorphisms, modular reduction optimizations, etc.) — arguably “technical improvements” in cryptography rather than a naked abstract idea. That may make an Alice challenge less straightforward, but it remains an option to explore. At minimum, raising a §101 defense preserves it for later and signals to the court that the patents’ validity is dubious on multiple grounds.
• “Never Settle” and Fight to Verdict: An aggressive strategy some companies have taken is simply to refuse settlement and force the troll to prove its case in court, even if that means an expensive trial. The rationale is that paying off a troll invites more lawsuits (marking you an easy mark), whereas a courtroom victory not only ends that case but deters future attacks. Newegg pioneered this approach in the tech sector: Confronted by a series of patent trolls in the early 2010s, Newegg adopted a policy of zero settlements. In one famous instance, Newegg fought Soverain Software, which claimed to own the online shopping cart, all the way through appeal — and won a Federal Circuit ruling invalidating the patent, freeing the entire e-commerce industry from that threat. Similarly, Cloudflare, a web services company, was sued by an NPE called Sable Networks and refused to settle even as others paid licenses. Cloudflare not only went to trial (winning a defense verdict) but also launched “Project Jengo,” a crowdsourced prior-art hunt offering cash bounties to the public for any prior art that could invalidate any patent in Sable’s portfolio. This aggressive counterattack led to a remarkable outcome: Sable not only lost in court, it eventually paid Cloudflare to end the case and agreed to surrender its patents to the public domain. The message was clear: Trolls who pick a fight with determined defendants risk losing their entire arsenal. Of course, this approach requires deep pockets and high risk tolerance. Patent litigation costs can easily reach millions of dollars, and as patent attorney Bill Fowler notes, “there is no patent small claims court” — even relatively small infringement cases demand costly expert witnesses and extensive discovery. Thus, while fighting to the bitter end can yield industry-wide benefits, it’s often only viable for larger companies or those with community funding support.
• Joint Defense and Industry Coalitions: When a patent troll sues multiple companies over the same patent, defendants often form a joint defense group to pool resources. They can share prior art research, coordinate legal strategy and file unified motions (where appropriate) to avoid duplication. Some industries have gone further by creating defensive coalitions: For example, the Linux Foundation’s OIN (Open Invention Network) is a consortium where members cross-license patents and collaboratively defend against attacks on Linux/open source systems. In 2019, when an NPE sued the GNOME Foundation (a nonprofit open source project) over a photo management patent, OIN and others rallied to GNOME’s aid, providing legal counsel and digging up prior art to invalidate the troll’s patent. This unified front not only helped GNOME achieve a successful outcome (the troll Rothschild Patent Imaging was eventually stripped of all rights), but also sent a warning to other trolls targeting open source projects. We are seeing a similar spirit of coalition in the Bitcoin realm: Community leaders are calling to “engage EFF, the Linux Foundation, [and] the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund to help fund or support,” a coordinated defense against Malikie. By combining efforts — from current and past core developers providing technical evidence that Bitcoin deliberately avoids patented methods to nonprofits bringing legal expertise — the industry can strengthen each defendant’s case.

In summary, industries hit by patent trolls have developed a toolkit of responses: invalidate the patent if possible (via prior art in court or PTAB review), challenge the troll’s chosen battlefield (through declaratory suits or venue fights), leverage legal precedent (Alice motions) to knock out weak claims early and stand together to share costs and knowledge. These strategies have repeatedly blunted NPE campaigns in the past and are directly relevant to the Malikie litigation.

2. Inter Partes Review: Mechanics, Costs and Effectiveness in Tech Cases

One of the most potent weapons against questionable patents is the Inter Partes Review process. Created by the America Invents Act of 2011, IPR allows anyone (usually a sued defendant, but it could be any interested party) to challenge a granted patent’s validity at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Here’s how IPR works and why it has become a go-to defense, especially for software and cryptography-related patents:

• Mechanics of IPR: To initiate an IPR, a petitioner files a detailed petition to the PTAB (an administrative tribunal of specialized patent judges), laying out how the patent claims are invalid in light of prior patents or printed publications. Notably, IPR can only use prior patents or printed publications (no live testimony or other evidence), making it a focused prior-art battle. The petition must be filed within 1 year of being sued for infringement (if applicable) and it typically targets the most critical claims the troll is asserting. The patent owner gets a chance to file a preliminary response. The PTAB then decides whether the challenger has shown a “reasonable likelihood” of prevailing on at least one claim. If yes, the Board “institutes” the IPR, and from that point a one-year trial clock starts (extendable by six months for good cause). During this trial phase, both sides submit briefs, expert declarations and sometimes oral hearings. Finally, the PTAB issues a Final Written Decision determining which claims are invalid, usually on grounds of anticipation or obviousness.
• Lower Cost and Faster Timeline: IPRs were designed to be faster and cheaper than courtroom litigation. A typical IPR from start to finish lasts about 18 months, compared to multiyear court litigation. The cost, while not trivial, is often an order of magnitude lower than fighting a full jury trial. Filing fees for an IPR (for up to 20 claims) are around $20,000-$30,000, and legal fees can be a few hundred thousand dollars. In contrast, defending a patent case through trial can cost several million dollars. This cost difference is why even mid-sized companies or start-ups have been able to mount IPR challenges, sometimes with support from outside organizations. For example, EFF’s Save Podcasting campaign raised about $80,000 from the public specifically to fund the IPR against Personal Audio’s podcast patent. In the crypto space, the newly formed Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) or the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund might similarly bankroll an IPR to protect open source developers and businesses from Malikie’s claims. The relatively manageable cost makes IPR an attractive collective effort: Multiple parties who fear they could be next can split the bill for a single IPR that knocks out the threat for all.
• Effectiveness and Success Rates: IPR has proven highly effective at invalidating questionable software and tech patents. Since its inception, statistics show that a large percentage of instituted IPRs result in patent claims being canceled. Recent data (2023-2024) indicate petitioners succeed in invalidating some or all challenged claims about 70-80% of the time when the IPR reaches a final decision. This is partly because patents that make it to IPR are often the “low-hanging fruit,” those that likely should not have been granted over the prior art in the first place. The PTAB judges also tend to be technically skilled and less swayed by rhetoric than a lay jury, focusing strictly on the patentability issues. Given Bitcoin’s academic roots (Bitcoin’s white paper itself cited prior works, and ECC has decades of literature), the odds are favorable that a well-prepared IPR could uncover prior art that the original patent examiners missed. At this point it is useful to note that the vast majority of patents receive primary merits examination by only a single USPTO employee. In Malikie’s case, their patents stem from the early 2000s; already, researchers are pointing to early cryptography conferences and NIST publications that might anticipate those “innovations.” If such references are presented to the PTAB, there’s a strong chance the PTAB would agree that the patent should not have been issued and cancel the relevant claims.
• IPR vs. Court Litigation — Key Differences: A major reason defendants prefer IPR is the lower burden of proof. In an IPR, invalidity needs to be shown by a preponderance of evidence (just >50% convinced). But in a district court trial, a patent is presumed valid by statute (35 U.S.C. §282) and a challenger must provide clear and convincing evidence (a higher standard, often analogized to >70%) to get a jury or judge to void it. This disparity means that even if you have solid prior art, a jury might still side with the patent holder in close cases, whereas the PTAB would likely invalidate the claims under the more lenient standard. Additionally, juries (especially in Texas, at least historically…) are generally reluctant to invalidate patents, perhaps due to a layperson’s deference to an issued government patent. The PTAB has no such reluctance and was nicknamed a “patent death squad” by some patent owners because of how many patents it struck down in the early years. That being said, it’s worth noting some recent policy shifts: The current U.S. Patent and Trademark Office leadership has made instituting IPRs a bit harder, aiming to curb some challenges in favor of patent owners (a “pro-patent stance”). Discretionary denials of IPR (for instance, if a parallel court case is well underway) have increased. Bill Fowler’s commentary in June 2025 noted that Commerce Secretary Lutnick instituted policies to tighten IPR institution practices, prompting some challengers to consider the older ex parte reexamination process as an alternative. Ex parte reexam is another Patent Office proceeding to reconsider a patent’s validity (with no strict one-year time bar), though the challenger doesn’t get to participate after filing the request. Some defendants pursue both routes: file an IPR (if not time-barred) for a fast, adversarial trial, and simultaneously file an ex parte reexam as a backup to keep the pressure on the patent even if the IPR is denied or the challenger later settles.
• Costs in Context: While $300,000 or more for an IPR is not pocket change, it is often a fraction of the potential damages at stake or the cost of continued litigation. Malikie, for example, is reportedly seeking up to six years of back royalties from the miners (CORZ is not subject to this, due to its Chapter 11 Bankruptcy). If those royalties were, hypothetically, $50 million, spending a few hundred thousand on an IPR to eliminate that liability (or to gain leverage to settle for a nuisance amount) is a wise investment. However, smaller startups or open source projects could probably not afford it alone, which is why industry groups step in. We’ve seen crowdfunding and pooled funding make IPRs possible: Beyond EFF’s podcast patent IPR, there was also Unified Patents, an organization (calling itself “The Anti-Troll”) that files IPRs to protect sectors from trolls. Unified often operates by collecting annual dues from member companies and then challenging patents that threaten those companies’ industries, at no extra cost to the individual members. In fact, in late 2024 COPA (the Crypto Open Patent Alliance) announced a partnership with Unified Patents to launch a “Blockchain Zone” dedicated to challenging NPE-held blockchain and crypto-related patents. This means that if patents like Malikie’s pose a serious threat, Unified Patents could file IPR petitions on its own initiative, funded by the broader alliance, which would save individual defendants money. Unified boasts that it never pays trolls and only invalidates their patents, thus removing the incentive for future attacks. In COPA’s view, this proactive use of IPRs and other challenges is essential because an estimated 58% of all U.S. patent litigation in the crypto/blockchain sector comes from NPEs, a staggering figure that highlights how critical patent defenses are for the crypto community.
• Outcome of IPR — What Then? If an IPR is successful, the claims are invalidated (once appeals are exhausted), meaning Malikie or other trolls can no longer assert those claims against anyone. This benefit is industry-wide: Unlike a settlement or win in one lawsuit, which only affects the parties, an IPR win knocks the patent out of the system. If the IPR fails (e.g., PTAB finds the claims valid over the presented prior art), the litigation in court still proceeds, but the defendant loses the ability to reuse those same prior art arguments at trial (IPR estoppel applies to any ground that was raised or reasonably could have been raised). Even so, defendants often take the shot at IPR because a win is so decisive, the burden of proof is much lower and the forum is more educated on these issues. In high-stakes cases, defendants might pursue both IPR and traditional invalidity defenses in parallel (raising different prior art in each to avoid estoppel overlap). And if an IPR petition is denied at the institution stage — which can happen for procedural reasons or insufficient showing — the defendant isn’t estopped at all, and they can still litigate validity in court as if the IPR was never filed. Thus, filing an IPR is usually a no-brainer defense in modern patent litigation, and it is very likely Core Scientific and Marathon (or an allied group like COPA/Unified) will prepare IPR petitions on the ECC patents Malikie is asserting.

In sum, IPR has reshaped the patent troll battlefield by giving defendants a powerful, efficient way to invalidate patents outside the uncertainties of a jury trial. Especially for software and cryptographic patents, where a rich background of academic prior art exists, the IPR process tilts the playing field back toward technology innovators and away from shell companies exploiting older patents.

3. Community-Led Responses and Industry Support Networks

Beyond the formal legal tools, an equally important aspect of fighting patent trolls is the mobilization of the community and industry support structures. In many NPE showdowns, collective action and public interest initiatives have made the difference between a lone defendant being coerced into settlement and a unified front that quashes the troll’s campaign. Here we explore how open source communities, advocacy groups and industry alliances contribute to defending against patent trolls:

• Crowdsourced Prior Art Searches: The global developer and academic community can be an invaluable resource for finding prior art, especially for patents in niche technical fields. Patent trolls count on the fact that individual defendants might not have the time or expertise to dig up obscure conference papers or decades-old source code. But when a call to action is issued, experts worldwide often volunteer leads. The EFF has a long history of organizing these efforts. In the Personal Audio case, EFF put out a public request for any evidence of pre-1996 podcast-like technology. Submissions poured in, including old Usenet postings and early Internet Radio projects, which helped form the basis of EFF’s successful IPR. Similarly, in 2017 Cloudflare’s Project Jengo offered cash bounties for prior art on all of a troll’s patents, not just the one asserted, flipping the script to put the troll on the defensive. I personally called for such a scorched-earth approach and believe that such a vigorous response is not only warranted but necessary. In the Bitcoin context, we’re already seeing this approach: Bitcoin developers and enthusiasts are actively hunting for prior art that predates Malikie’s patents. By pooling such knowledge on forums or via organized initiatives (perhaps a “Bitcoin Prior Art Repository” for ECC and other core technologies), the community can bolster the invalidity case. Dan Sanchez explicitly issued a call to arms for builders and researchers to unite and “delete these [patent] claims” by compiling prior art, emphasizing that “if you are a builder of any kind, you are at risk!” This kind of rallying cry is reminiscent of open source communities in the past, for instance, when the GIF image format’s patent threatened open web use, developers created patent-free alternatives (PNG) and shared work-arounds until the patent expired. It’s a combination of defensive documentation and morale-building, showing trolls that the community won’t be easy prey.

• The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund: In January 2022, a Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund was announced by Jack Dorsey and others, initially to help Bitcoin Core developers facing frivolous lawsuits (like Craig Wright’s claims). While its primary focus was on defending open-source devs from harassment and liability, the fund could extend to patent issues if needed. Its mandate is to financially support legal defense for Bitcoin ecosystem participants who cannot afford it. Patent battles definitely fit that description for smaller companies and individual devs. These community-funded efforts create a safety net: They ensure that a smaller Bitcoin mining operation or wallet startup hit by a patent suit isn’t left to choose between bankrupting itself in litigation or paying an unjust licensing fee. Instead, they can get backing to mount a proper defense.

• COPA (Crypto Open Patent Alliance): COPA deserves special attention. Formed in 2020 by fintech and crypto firms (with Block, Coinbase and others as founding members), COPA’s mission is twofold: encourage members to pledge not to offensively assert their own crypto-related patents (to prevent an arms race) and actively challenge patents that threaten the community. COPA has already taken on a high-profile fight by suing Craig “Faketoshi” Wright over the Bitcoin white paper copyright/patent claims (and won a U.K. court ruling that Wright’s assertions were false). In the patent troll sphere, COPA’s partnership with Unified Patents led to the creation of the aforementioned Blockchain Zone, explicitly targeting NPE-held patents in blockchain. COPA’s chief counsel has stated that “patent trolls must be stopped so the community can continue to build,” and that COPA will provide “pass-through protection at no cost” to its members. This implies that if a COPA member (say a smaller Bitcoin company) is sued, COPA and Unified might handle the IPR or even the litigation, effectively shielding the member. Malikie’s broad net, with the implication that no Bitcoin infrastructure company is safe, is precisely the scenario COPA was created for. We can expect COPA to rally its member companies (over 300 of them as of late 2024) to share prior art and perhaps file collective amicus briefs or petitions. They might even engage in licensing negotiations as a bloc, though given COPA’s stance, they’re more likely to fight than pay.

• Public Awareness and Stigma: Community response isn’t only behind the scenes. There’s also value in controlling the narrative. Patent trolls often operate in the shadows, pressuring targets quietly to sign licenses. Publicly calling them out can undermine their strategy. We see Bitcoin media outlets and influencers doing just that: referring to Malikie plainly as a patent troll, and framing the lawsuits as an attack on the Bitcoin network rather than a legitimate claim. This narrative puts moral pressure on Malikie; if they push too hard, they risk a backlash or even legislative attention. It’s happened before: When an NPE started sending mass demands to small businesses for using Wi-Fi (the infamous Innovatio case), it garnered negative press and eventually, the major Wi-Fi equipment makers stepped in to defend their customers. In another case, the state of Vermont sued the MPJH Scanner Troll for violating consumer protection laws by sending misleading demand letters to local businesses. Other states, such as North Carolina, have passed strong anti-troll legislation that has been upheld in court. In the crypto world, portraying Malikie’s campaign as an existential threat to innovation can rally lawmakers or regulators to scrutinize the situation. We already see experts noting that if Malikie truly enforced its patents broadly, “it might undermine the security of the Bitcoin network” — a dire consequence that no regulator or politician would want to be responsible for. While patent law is federal, there’s precedent for the FTC investigating patent trolls for anticompetitive behavior if they abuse a dominant patent in bad faith. Community outcry can prompt such oversight.

In summary, the defense against patent trolls is not just legal filings, but also community solidarity and resource-sharing. From EFF’s legal battles and COPA’s patent pool, to crowdsourced prior art and joint defense groups, these collective efforts ensure that even those without deep pockets have a fighting chance. The Bitcoin community, much like the open source software community before it, is leveraging these tools: engaging nonprofits, coordinating through alliances like COPA, and tapping the wisdom of the crowd. This multipronged community response can significantly tilt the balance against Malikie’s assertions.

4. Ramifications for Bitcoin and Parallels in Other Industries

What happens if, despite all defenses, a patent troll like Malikie succeeds in court? The implications for the Bitcoin industry, especially smaller players, could be profound, and analogous scenarios in other industries provide cautionary tales. Here we consider the potential fallout and compare it to past outcomes in tech sectors:

• Financial Strain and Market Exit: The most immediate impact would be financial. If Malikie were to prevail and secure a judgment or licensing agreement, miners and possibly other Bitcoin companies would face ongoing royalties (or a hefty one-time payout). Patent damages can include up to six years of back royalties (the statutory limit for past infringement), which for large-scale miners could mean tens of millions of dollars. As attorney Aaron Brogan noted, a win could even risk pushing defendants like Core Scientific or Marathon into bankruptcy (or back into bankruptcy in CORZ’s case) given the sums involved. For smaller and mid-size miners, the prospect is grim: Many operate on thin profit margins tied to the BTC price and energy costs. An additional “patent tax” could make their business unsustainable, forcing them to shut down or relocate to jurisdictions where U.S. patent law can’t reach them. In Bitcoin, a few well-capitalized miners might weather the fees, but independent miners could be priced out, further centralizing the U.S. mining ecosystem — ironically contributing to the opposite of Bitcoin’s decentralization ethos.
• Precedent for More Lawsuits: A successful assertion by Malikie would set a precedent and embolden further litigation. Malikie itself could go down the list of targets: other public mining companies, mining pool operators, hardware manufacturers (if any of the patent claims cover aspects of mining devices or wallets, as Malikie’s complaint suggests). Moreover, other patent trolls might dust off old cryptography patents in adjacent areas (hash algorithms, networking protocols in blockchain, etc.) seeing that the Bitcoin industry is “open for business” to patent licensing. This has happened in industries like semiconductors and smartphones; one troll’s big win triggered a “gold rush” by others holding similar patents. For example, after NPEs successfully extracted settlements from some small mobile app developers, a wave of new demand letters hit the market targeting every popular app. The cost of legal defense creates a vicious cycle: Even meritless claims can cause companies to settle to avoid litigation expenses, and those settlement dollars then fund the troll to sue the next target. If Malikie proves profitable, it could lead to a long-running drag on the Bitcoin sector, where innovation slows because companies must allocate budget to patent licensing or lawsuits instead of development.
• Future Safeguards: Looking forward, success against Malikie could also spur the Bitcoin community to adopt more systematic safeguards. This might include deeper participation in organizations like COPA. It could also lead to patent insurance products for miners or developers, and increased lobbying for patent law changes (for example, raising the bar for patent eligibility of pure software, or fee-shifting to penalize trolls). The outcome of these cases could even influence how protocol upgrades are approached. There might be a push to more thoroughly vet any BIPs for patent risks and document alternatives or get explicit patent grants from inventors (somewhat similar to how the IETF requires disclosure of patents on proposed standards). In a sense, the Bitcoin ecosystem may mature in its IP awareness, much as the Linux community did after early legal scares.

Conclusion

The clash between Malikie Innovations and Bitcoin miners exemplifies a classic conflict between open innovation and legacy fiat intellectual property rights. History shows that industries can fend off patent trolls by using every available legal tool, from IPRs at the PTAB to robust invalidity defenses in court and by banding together through community-driven initiatives. U.S. law provides mechanisms like declaratory judgments, prior-art based invalidity challenges and the Alice test for abstract ideas to defend against overly broad or old patents repurposed by NPEs. The Bitcoin community, much like the open source software community before it, is now mobilizing these defenses.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that such challenges often rally the community to emerge stronger: Weak patents get knocked out, collaboration intensifies, and a clear message is sent to would-be trolls that this ecosystem is not an easy target. Cases in parallel industries, from podcasting to Wi-Fi to Linux, demonstrate that a determined defense can not only defeat the immediate threat but also set precedents that discourage future suits. On the flip side, complacency or capitulation could impose a tax on innovation and dent the growth of Bitcoin technology in the crucial years ahead.

Ultimately, the fight against Malikie will likely hinge on demonstrating that Bitcoin’s cryptographic methods were neither novel nor proprietary to any one company, but rather stemmed from decades of public research and collaborative development. By clearly articulating that story in court, in the Patent Office and in the court of public opinion, the defendants and their allies can not only protect their own operations but also preserve the freedom to build and use Bitcoin for everyone. As Paul Grewal, chief legal counsel for COPA member Coinbase, said, “Patent trolls are barriers in the path of innovation… They must be stopped so that the community can continue to do the important business of building the crypto-economy.” 

The coming together of miners, developers, legal advocates and industry groups in this case will be crucial in determining whether that vision holds true.

This is a guest post by Colin Crossman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post The Trolls Are Coming: Defending Bitcoin Mining from Patent Trolls first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Colin Crossman.

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U.S. Senate Passes Stablecoin Bill The GENIUS Act

The U.S. Senate has passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act (S. 394) by a vote of 68-30, establishing the first comprehensive federal framework for fiat-backed stablecoins.

The bipartisan legislation was introduced by Senator Bill Hagerty and co-sponsored by Senators Tim Scott, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cynthia Lummis. It passed under the official title “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025.” 

The United States Senate has passed the GENIUS Act

— Bo Hines (@BoHines) June 17, 2025

“Today, on a bipartisan basis, the Senate passed its first piece of major legislation this Congress with my bill—the GENIUS Act,” said Senator Hagerty. “With GENIUS, the United States is one step closer to becoming the crypto capital of the world.” 

The GENIUS Act tightly regulates payment stablecoins, requiring 1:1 dollar-backed reserves, monthly disclosures, audits, and clear federal or state licensing. It prohibits algorithmic coins and places strict limitations on rehypothecation and commingling of reserves. Importantly, the bill also amends existing securities laws to explicitly state that compliant stablecoins are not securities—freeing them from SEC jurisdiction.  

While the bill is aimed at stablecoins, Bitcoin proponents see it as a foundational win. 

Stablecoins act as bridges into Bitcoin, enabling on-ramps, easier settlements, and institutional access. By legitimizing stablecoin infrastructure, the U.S. is indirectly reinforcing the rails on which Bitcoin operates. 

And as the financial system modernizes, trusted access points like dollar-backed tokens could play a role in onboarding new Bitcoin users—especially in international markets and corporate treasuries. 

“The U.S. Senate has passed the GENIUS Act — landmark stablecoin legislation that provides regulatory clarity, enhances consumer protection, and extends U.S. dollar dominance online,” said President Donald Trump’s AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks. “Thanks to President Trump for his leadership on crypto & Senator Hagerty for authoring the bill.”

The passage of the GENIUS Act may be the clearest signal yet that the U.S. is preparing for a stablecoin and Bitcoin-powered future.   

This post U.S. Senate Passes Stablecoin Bill The GENIUS Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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Ukraine Introduces Bill to Allow Bitcoin in National Reserves

Ukraine has introduced a bill that would give its central bank the legal right to hold Bitcoin and other assets as part of its national reserves. The draft law, submitted to the Verkhovna Rada on June 10, 2025, proposes updates to existing legislation to include “virtual assets” in the foreign exchange and gold reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). 

NEW: Ukraine introduces bill for Bitcoin Reserve in Parliament pic.twitter.com/bYIiCNF13D

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 17, 2025

This doesn’t mean Ukraine is officially adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet just yet, but it would give the central bank the green light to do so in the future.  

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Member of Parliament Yaroslav Zhelezniak, emphasized that the legislation is about granting permission, not making it a requirement. “Whether and to what extent they actually do so,” he said, “is up to the institution itself.” 

Zhelezniak recently discussed with Binance’s regional head Kyrylo Khomiakov, that he believes Bitcoin could help Ukraine strengthen its economic position and contribute to long term digital innovation. 

The timing of the bill is vital as Ukraine has been under enormous financial pressure since Russia’s invasion in 2022. Inflation remains high, the hryvnia has lost significant value, and the country is heavily reliant on international aid and loans. The NBU has managed to hold roughly $44.5 billion in reserves, mostly in U.S. dollars and government securities, but its room to maneuver is limited.  

Back in 2022, the Ukrainian government was actively raising donations for the war effort through Bitcoin. They had an official wallet set up for donations, and their politicians were publicly tweeting out the addresses asking for support. On the first day alone, Ukraine’s official Bitcoin wallet raised over $3.5 million. By leaning into Bitcoin during their time of crisis, the government showed their belief and commitment in it, and this new bill shows that that commitment has not faded.  

NEW Ukraine government #Bitcoin wallet raises OVER $3.5 MILLION in 1st day of donations

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) February 27, 2022

If this bill is adopted, it could position Ukraine as one of the first countries to give its central bank the legal ability to hold Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.

This post Ukraine Introduces Bill to Allow Bitcoin in National Reserves first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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Trump Media Files to Launch Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF 

Trump Media & Technology Group has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF, B.T.

The ETF will directly hold Bitcoin and Ether, with an initial allocation of 75% Bitcoin and 25% Ether. Shares of the fund will be offered to investors to track the performance of these assets and are expected to trade on NYSE Arca once approved. 

JUST IN: Registration statement for Trump Media’s Bitcoin Treasury deal was declared effective by the SEC pic.twitter.com/PFyy44qXxH

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 13, 2025

Crypto.com has been selected as the exclusive custodian, prime execution agent, staking, and liquidity provider for the ETF. Yorkville America Digital, LLC is the sponsor of the fund.

According to the company’s announcement, “The launch of the Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF is pending effectiveness of the Registration Statement as well as approval of a Form 19b-4 filing with the SEC.” 

The fund is structured as a Nevada business trust. Shares will be issued and redeemed in blocks of 10,000 by authorized participants, with cash used for creation and redemption. The ETF may offer in-kind transactions in the future, pending additional regulatory approval. 

Trump Media acknowledged, “A registration statement relating to the Shares has been filed with the SEC but has not yet become effective. The Shares may not be sold, nor may offers to buy be accepted, prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective.” 

The ETF is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which typically governs mutual funds and traditional ETFs by imposing rules on investor protections, disclosures, and fund operations. Because the ETF holds Bitcoin and Ether directly rather than securities, it qualifies as a grantor trust and is exempt from these requirements. 

The ETF filing also reflects Trump Media’s strategy to establish a presence in the digital asset space beyond social media and streaming. With the development of its financial services arm, Truth.Fi, the company is clearly positioning itself to compete in the growing digital asset space.  

If approved, the Truth Social ETF would give investors a direct, regulated path into both Bitcoin and Ether through one fund. As Trump Media expands its presence in financial services, the move signals a clear intention to compete in the space. 

This post Trump Media Files to Launch Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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Bitcoin Layer 2: Statechains

Statechains are an original second layer protocol originally developed by Ruben Somsen in 2018, depending on the eltoo (or LN Symmetry) proposal. In 2021 a variation of the original proposal, Mercury, was built by CommerceBlock. In 2024, a further iteration of the original Mercury scheme was built, Mercury Layer. 

The Statechain protocol is a bit more complicated to discuss compared to other systems such as Ark or Lightning because of the range of variations that are possible between the original proposed design, the two that have been actually implemented, and other possible designs that have been loosely proposed. 

Like Ark, Statechains depend on a centralized coordinating server in order to function. Unlike Ark, they have a slightly different trust model than a vUTXO in an Ark batch. They depend on the coordinating server to delete previously generated shares of a private key in order to remain trustless, but as long as the server follows the defined protocol and does so, they provide a strong security guarantee. 

The general idea of a Statechain is to be able to transfer ownership of an entire UTXO between different users off-chain, facilitated by the coordinator. There is no requirement for receiving liquidity like Lightning, or the coordinator server to provide any liquidity like Ark. 

To begin, we will look at the original protocol proposed by Ruben Somsen. 

The Original Statechain

Statechains are effectively a pre-signed transaction allowing the current owner of the Statechain to unilaterally withdraw on-chain whenever they want, and a history signed messages cryptographically proving that past owners and the receivers they sent the Statechain to approved those transfers. 

The original design was built on eltoo using ANYPREVOUT, but the current plans on how to enable the same functionality make use of CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY and CHECKSIGFROMSTACK (a high level explanation of this is at the end of the CHECKSIGFROMSTACK article). The basic idea is a script enabling a pre-signed transaction to spend any UTXO that has that script and locks the appropriate amount of bitcoin, rather than being tied to spending a single specific UTXO. 

In the protocol, a user wishing to deposit their coins to a Statechain approaches a coordinator server and goes through a deposit protocol. The depositing user, Bob, generates a key that will be uniquely owned by him, but also a second “transitory” key that will eventually be shared (more on this soon). They then craft a deposit transaction locking their coin to a multisig requiring the coordinator’s key and the transitory key to sign. 

Using this multisig, Bob and the coordinator sign a transaction that spends that coin and creates a UTXO that can either be spent by any other transaction signed by the transitory key and the coordinator’s key using LN Symmetry, or Bob’s unique key after a timelock. Bob can now fund the multisig with the appropriate amount, and the Statechain has been created. 

To transfer a Statechain to Charlie, Bob must go through a multistep process. First, Bob signs a message with his unique private key that attests to the fact he is going to transfer the Statechain to Charlie. Charlie must also sign a message attesting to the fact that he has received the Statechain from Bob. Finally, the coordinator server must sign a new transaction allowing Charlie to unilaterally claim the Statechain on-chain before Bob sends Charlie a copy of the transitory key. 

All of this is made atomic using adapter signatures. These are signatures that are modified in such a way using a random piece of data that renders them invalid, but can be made valid again once the holder of the signature receives that piece of information. All of the messages, and the new pre-signed transaction are signed with adapter signatures, and atomically made valid at the same time through the release of the adapter data. 

Holders of a Statechain must trust that the coordinator server never conspires with a previous owner to sign an immediate closure of the Statechain and steal funds from the current owner, but the chain of pre-signed messages can prove that a coordinator has participated in theft if they were to do so. If a past owner attempts to use their pre-signed transaction to steal the funds, the timelock on the spend path using only their key allows the current owner to submit their pre-signed transaction and correctly claim the funds on chain. 

Mercury and Mercury Layer

The original Statechain architecture requires a softfork in order to function. CommerceBlock designed their variant of Statechains to function without a softfork, but in order to do so tradeoffs were made in terms of functionality. 

The basic idea is the same as the original design, all users hold a pre-signed transaction that allows them to claim their funds unilaterally, and the coordinator server still plays a role in facilitating off-chain transfers that requires them to be trusted to behave honestly. The two major differences are how those transactions are signed, and the structure of the pre-signed transaction users are given. 

Where the signing is concerned, there is no longer a transitory private key that is passed from user to user. Instead of this, a multiparty-computation protocol (MPC) is used so that the original owner and the coordinator server are able to collaboratively generate partial pieces of a private key without either of them ever possessing the full key. This key is used to sign the pre-signed transactions. The MPC protocol allows the current owner and coordinator to engage in a second protocol with a third party, the receiver of a transfer, to regenerate different pieces that add up to the same private key. In both the Mercury and Mercury Layer protocol, after completing a transfer an honest coordinator server deletes the key material corresponding to the previous owner. As long as this is done, it is no longer possible for the coordinator to sign a transaction with a previous owner, as the new piece of key material they have is not compatible with the piece any previous owner might still have. This is actually a stronger guarantee, as long as the coordinator is honest, than the original proposal.

The pre-signed transaction structure for Mercury and Mercury Layer can’t use LN Symmetry, as this is not possible without a softfork. In lieu of this, CommerceBlock opted to use decrementing timelocks. The original owner’s pre-signed transaction is timelocked using nLocktime to a time far out in the future from the point of the Statechain’s creation. As each subsequent user receives the Statechain during a transfer, the nLocktime value of their transaction is some pre-determined length of time shorter than the previous owner. This guarantees that a previous owner is incapable of even trying to submit their transaction on-chain before the current owner can, but it also means that eventually at some point the current owner must close their Statechain on-chain before previous owners’ transactions start becoming valid. 

The major difference between Mercury and Mercury Layer is how these transactions are signed. In the case of Mercury, the coordinator server simply sees the transaction proposed, verifies it, and then signs it. Mercury Layer uses a blind-signing protocol, meaning that they do not actually see any details of the transaction they are signing. This necessitates the server tracking Statechains using anonymized records on the server, and a special authorization key of the current owner so that they can be sure they are only signing valid transfers. 

Synergy With Other Layers

Statechains can synergize with other Layer 2s that are based on pre-signed transactions. For instance, part of the original proposal suggested a combination of Statechains and Lightning Channels. Because both are simply pre-signed transactions, it is possible to actually nest a Lightning channel on top of a Statechain. This simply requires the current owner’s unilateral exit key to be a multisig, and the creation of the pre-signed transactions spending that output into a Lightning channel. This allows Lightning channels to be opened and closed entirely off-chain. 

In a similar fashion, it is possible to nest a Statechain on top of a vUTXO in an Ark batch. This simply requires the pre-signed transactions necessary for a Statechain to be constructed, spending the vUTXO output. 

Wrapping Up

Statechains are not entirely trustless, but they are a very trust minimized scheme that is very liquidity efficient and allows freely transferring UTXOs off-chain between any users willing to accept the trust model of Statechains. 

While the original proposal has yet to be built, the two implementations designed by CommerceBlock have been completely implemented. Both failed to achieve anything more than marginal use in the real world. Whether this is due to users being unwilling to accept the trust model involved, or simply a failure in marketing or awareness is something that cannot be fully ascertained. 

Regardless, given that there are two full implementations and designs for a more flexible variation should LN Symmetry ever become possible on Bitcoin, this an option that will always be here. The nice thing about open source software is that it will always be there regardless of whether people use it now, should they choose to in the future.

This post Bitcoin Layer 2: Statechains first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shinobi.

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The 30,000-Foot View of the Oslo Freedom Forum

As I step onto the plane leaving Gardermoen Airport in Oslo, Norway, the weight and warmth of the past week settles into my chest.

The Oslo Freedom Forum is not a conference. It’s not a summit. It’s something harder to name and even harder to describe — a convergence of courage, truth and defiance that burns through the noise of the modern world and gives you no choice but to listen, feel and act.

For the second time, I leave this city more convinced than ever that something unstoppable is rising. That amid the censorship, surveillance and state repression spreading across the globe, there is a countervailing force rooted in humanity, accelerated by technology and led by those who’ve already paid the price for speaking out.

The Forum doesn’t trade in empty optimism. It delivers a different kind of hope, forged from lived experience and stitched together by people who have been in the dark and still choose to see the light. A hope borne from the stories of individuals who have lived through the worst an authoritarian regime can do and still choose to fight for the freedom of others. The experiences shared were hard. At times, devastating. But they weren’t offered for pity. They were calls to action.

Just days after she was abducted, blindfolded, tortured, and sexually assaulted in a Tanzanian prison cell, Agather Atuhaire stood in front of a crowd of strangers and told her story.

Her voice did not tremble.

The Ugandan journalist and lawyer had traveled to Tanzania in solidarity with fellow East African dissidents, only to be disappeared in a black van alongside Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi.

And yet, against all odds, she came back. Not just to her home in Uganda, but also to the stage in Oslo, where she spoke calmly and clearly about what it means to tell the truth under a dictatorship.

Her presentation, “The Digital Free Speech Crackdown in Uganda,” laid bare the authoritarian playbook: social media blackouts, propaganda campaigns, surveillance of journalists and the slow financial asphyxiation of independent media. When the government doesn’t like a story, it simply blocks the platform or website. When a journalist digs too deep, they disappear for a while. Or forever. Atuhaire painted a picture many struggle to even imagine.

And yet, after everything, she didn’t just recount these struggles. She looked out at the crowd and thanked the open source builders and contributors who write code and create tools that make it possible for activists like her to speak, move money and organize under regimes that want them silenced, or worse.

(Ugandan journalist and lawyer, Agather Atuhaire, speaks during the Freedom Tech track at the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum.)

From Iran, independent Bitcoin educator Ziya Sadr reminded us that financial privacy is not a luxury but a necessary lifeline for those facing the financial repression by oppressive rulers. Sadr’s detainment during the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom movement following the murder of Mahsa Amini by the Iranian regime is a testament to that. Without financial privacy, activists’ actions, connections and finances are exposed to a regime equipped with widespread financial controls and a sophisticated, restrictive internet firewall that rivals even China’s.

The result is one of the most repressive digital environments in the world. And if that wasn’t enough, the Iranian rial currency has lost more than 80% of its value in just a few years.

Against this backdrop, Iranians are using bitcoin as undebasable savings, and to buy digital services like VPNs in order to access the open internet. But even that act, just reaching the outside world, requires a level of privacy most of us take for granted.

In his presentation, “Securing Lifelines: The Bitcoin Privacy Imperative,” Sadr shared that many Iranians turn to Bitcoin Coinjoins, a privacy technique that breaks the link between Bitcoin transaction inputs. Coinjoins preserve user transaction privacy and, more importantly, shield Iranians from the surveillance and retaliation of a regime who punishes anyone trying to access information beyond its tightly controlled digital spaces. The use of Coinjoins is becoming more difficult as global legal pressure mounts against open source developers, and in the aftermath of the Samourai developer arrests, privacy protocols like Whirlpool are unworkable.

Today, Sadr is learning more about additional Bitcoin privacy tools, including Paykoin, a privacy method that allows two users to contribute an input to a Bitcoin transaction. Payjoin breaks common chain analysis heuristics and conceals the sender and receiver of a transaction as well as the payment amount. Then there is ecash, a form of digital cash backed by Bitcoin that enables very private, everyday payments with the custodial trade-off of trusting mints (entities that issue and redeem ecash tokens) to store user funds.

The continued development of these protocols is crucial for Iranians, who live under a government that not only tracks and surveils digital behavior, but also imposes automatic fines on women for violating hijab rules and manipulates currency exchange rates to profit off citizens’ savings. For millions in Iran, bitcoin offers a last line of defense against a collapsing currency, intrusive surveillance and total financial repression.

(Independent Iranian Bitcoin educator, Ziya Sadr, speaks during the Freedom Tech track at the Oslo Freedom Forum.)

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López took the stage at the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum not as a politician, but as a witness to what happens when a state turns its institutions into further tendrils of its repression machine.

After Nicolás Maduro stole Venezuela’s 2024 elections, López watched thousands of his fellow people — activists, students, journalists, opposition members and lawyers — get arrested, disappeared or forced into exile. The regime blocked access to social media, revoked passports, criminalized dissent and used the financial system as a means of controlling the population.

Amid this digital repression and Venezuela’s 162% inflation rate, López sees bitcoin (decentralized money) and Nostr (decentralized social media) as lifelines. When dictators shut down the internet or freeze your bank account, alternatives that are open source, decentralized, uncensorable and accessible become more important than ever for the survival of democracy and freedom.

“Decentralized resistance is the convergence of people, Bitcoin, Nostr, and AI.

People, it’s about the center and the end of what we are doing.

Brave women and men who sacrifice their freedom, who take risks, who are willing to fight for other people.

If it’s not about people, technology wouldn’t be something worth fighting for.

Bitcoin is freedom money. It’s decentralized, nobody controls it, nobody can stop it, it can move around without borders.”

(Venezuelan Opposition Leader Leopoldo López during the Freedom Tech track at the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum.)

For decades, Paraguay’s greatest natural resource, hydroelectric power, has flowed out of the country through international contracts, fueling development in neighboring countries like Brazil and Argentina while one in four Paraguayans remained trapped in poverty. Paraguay’s Itaipu Dam, one of the largest in the world, has long symbolized this paradox: a river of energy diverted away from the very people who need it most.

Björn Schmidtke and Delia Garcete of Penguin Group are flipping that script.

In a landmark move, they secured Paraguay’s first 100-megawatt power purchase agreement, marking the beginning of a bold experiment to reclaim that energy for the people of Paraguay. Instead of selling it off to foreign powers, they use it to mine Bitcoin — and the proceeds go to Paraguay’s youth.

(Itaipu dam, Paraguay)

Out of the heat of humming ASICs and the roar of the Itaipu turbines rises Penguin Academy, a free software development school that equips young Paraguayans with coding, development and technical skills. Over 10,000 students have applied, including 800 women; more than 3,000 have already graduated. And over 85% of the graduates from their Code Pro program now work in the tech industry.

What was once wasted or exported is now being transformed into freedom and a future. Through bitcoin, Paraguay’s stranded energy is finding its way home.

Rushan Abbas is a Uyghur activist who has spent years raising the alarm about the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to erase her people. During the Freedom Tech track, she spoke not just as a human rights advocate but as a sister whose sibling, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, was abducted by the CCP in 2018 and hasn’t been heard from since. Her voice was calm, but her words were heavy.

Abbas described a region turned into a digital and physical prison. The Uyghur homeland, East Turkistan, has been intentionally transformed into one of the world’s most sophisticated police states, where mass surveillance, facial recognition systems, police checkpoints, asset seizure, arranged marriage, sterilization and forced labor are used not just to control the Uyghur population, but to suppress them out of existence.

As Rushan describes it: “Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.”

Rushan made clear that monetary control is central to the CCP’s strategy. Uyghurs have their assets and bank accounts frozen, their land seized and their homes stolen. They are stripped of any ability to save, transact or build generational wealth, and are forced into government-run labor schemes under the guise of “poverty alleviation.”

Rushan reminds us that what’s happening to the Uyghurs is not abstract. It’s a targeted, systematic erasure carried out with weaponized technology and financial repression. Her sister’s disappearance is one of millions of silenced lives, but she refuses to let it be forgotten. In Oslo, Rushan stood not just as a witness, but her words served as a warning: When a government can monitor every transaction, surveil every citizen and control every movement, it doesn’t just repress but entirely dismantles the foundations of a people’s identity, autonomy and future.

(Uyghur activist Rushan Abbas speaks during the Freedom Tech track at the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum.)

For these reasons and more, you don’t leave the Oslo Freedom Forum feeling defeated. You leave reminded that truth is more powerful than propaganda, that code can protect life and that resistance isn’t just possible — it’s already happening.

And if you’re fortunate enough to live in a place where speaking freely or moving money isn’t a life-risking act, you’re reminded of the privilege that comes with that freedom and the responsibility you have to stand with those who are still fighting for it.

This year, I felt a noticeable pulse of momentum around freedom tech. As we saw above, human rights defenders and dissidents didn’t just talk about the repression they endured. They emphasized the optimism about the tools that help them peacefully fight back: Bitcoin, Nostr, privacy tools, open source AI models, uncensorable VPNs — tools that work in the shadows, beneath firewalls, around embargoes and beyond borders. Tools that build a parallel system, where the right to transact, communicate, organize and resist cannot be revoked at the press of a button.

These are the instruments keeping movements alive, getting money to dissidents and protecting voices at risk. And behind every tool is a quiet builder, a pseudonymous contributor or an open source developer who may never take the stage but is just as much a part of the story.

The Oslo Freedom Forum is not just a gathering of voices. It’s a frontline, a place where the future is crafted by those who refuse to give in. And what emerges from that convergence is a simple, undeniable truth: Authoritarianism adapts, but so do we. With Bitcoin, with open source tools, with decentralized networks, with unstoppable courage.

At 30,000 feet, well above the noise and borders they try to enforce, one thing is clear: No authoritarian regime, no matter how brutal or well funded, has ever succeeded in stamping out the human desire to be free. The Oslo Freedom Forum is proof of that. And if you’re paying attention, it’s also a glimpse into what comes next.

This isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning of the next chapter. One written not by the powerful, but by the free.

Onward.

This post The 30,000-Foot View of the Oslo Freedom Forum first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Zac Guignard.

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Coinbase Announces Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, Offering up to 4% BTC Back on Everything

Coinbase is launching its first-ever branded credit card in partnership with American Express, set to roll out this fall. Called the Coinbase One Card, it will be available only to U.S. members of Coinbase One, the platform’s monthly subscription service. The card will offer 2% to 4% back in Bitcoin on everyday purchases, along with access to American Express perks.  

JUST IN: Coinbase launches credit card allowing users to earn up to 4% bitcoin back on every purchase pic.twitter.com/d6pdNZV4pi

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 12, 2025

This is a first-of-its-kind product for Coinbase, which previously only offered a prepaid debit card with Visa in 2020. 

“We see real potential in the combination of Coinbase and crypto with the powerful backing of American Express, and what the card offers is an excellent mix of what customers are looking for right now,” said Will Stredwick, head of American Express global network services, during the Coinbase State of Crypto Summit in New York.

The card is part of a larger push by Coinbase to expand its subscription-based services. Coinbase One costs $29.99/month and includes zero trading fees, higher staking rewards, and customer support perks. The company also announced a cheaper version—Coinbase Basic—for $4.99/month or $49.99/year, which includes fewer features.

Coinbase’s subscription business is growing fast. It brought in $698.1 million in Q1 2025, compared to $1.26 billion in trading revenue. According to William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey, this kind of recurring revenue is a big reason why long-term investors are sticking with the stock.

Launched in 2023, Coinbase One now has over a million members. The company has been steadily growing its ecosystem with products like its Base developer platform and a self-custody wallet. 

The company has long positioned Bitcoin at the center of its strategy—offering BTC custody services to institutions, supporting Bitcoin ETFs, integrating Bitcoin rewards into its products, and actively advocating for Bitcoin-friendly regulation in Washington. Coinbase also supports Bitcoin development directly through funding grants and engineering support. As the largest publicly traded crypto exchange in the U.S., Coinbase continues to frame Bitcoin not just as an asset, but as the foundation of its long-term vision.

This post Coinbase Announces Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, Offering up to 4% BTC Back on Everything first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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F Street Announced Goal Of Accumulating $10 Million In Bitcoin

Today, F Street, an alternative investment and private lending firm, announced it has begun adding Bitcoin to its corporate treasury, with a goal of accumulating $10 million in BTC.

JUST IN: Investment firm F Street announced it’s buying Bitcoin daily using business proceeds for its treasury reserves

They plan to buy $10 million Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/NMLOteyUYU

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 11, 2025

The company began daily BTC purchases on June 9, using business proceeds and treasury funds. This move is part of a broader strategy to strengthen F Street’s capital base and support its real estate lending and investment operations.

“Bitcoin offers a compelling hedge against inflation and dollar debasement,” said the Chief Operating Officer of F Street Mike Doney. “Incorporating it into our treasury is a strategic step to preserve and grow value for our investors and our business interests.”

In line with its commitment to transparency, F Street also plans to establish a public proof of reserves so that stakeholders can independently verify the custody of its Bitcoin assets. The firm aims to build a meaningful BTC position that supports its long term vision of a capital framework.

F Street’s move comes at a time when institutional interest in Bitcoin is experiencing a notable surge, and many prominent voices in the financial world are starting to support it. Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, speaking today in an interview with Bloomberg, named Bitcoin as a critical part of what he considers the ideal portfolio against inflation.

“What would an ideal portfolio be… But it would be some kind of combination of probably gold, vol adjusted, Bitcoin, gold, stocks,” Jones said. “That’s probably your best portfolio to fight inflation. Vol adjusted because the vol of Bitcoin obviously is five times that of gold, so you’re going to do it in different ways.”

Adding to the momentum, the Head of Digital Assets of BlackRock Robert Mitchnick explained two days ago what’s really driving the surge in demand for Bitcoin ETFs.

“It’s a lot of things coming together. Out of the gate was retail and investor demand…” said Mitchnick. “Now, more recently, we’ve seen just steady progress of more wealth advisor adoption, more institutional adoption. It’s been a mix of people who it’s the first time that they’ve invested in anything in the crypto space. And then on the other hand, you have lots of people who’ve been invested in Bitcoin for a long time and they’re taking advantage of the ETP wrapper.”

This post F Street Announced Goal Of Accumulating $10 Million In Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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Skull, $5 million; Banana, $6 million; Freedom, Priceless

“It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.” 

This message was posted by Satoshi Nakamoto to BitcoinTalk on December 11, 2010. A couple of months later, in February 2011, the Silk Road marketplace was launched, and only a couple months after — on April 23, 2011 — Satoshi posted his last message.

In October 2013, Ross Ulbricht was captured by the FBI and the Silk Road fell — only to be replaced by a thousand more copycat marketplace sites. The rest is Bitcoin history.

Ross Ulbricht chose to center his Bitcoin 2025 keynote speech around an experience he had clearing wasp nests in a cabin in the woods. Wearing a suit and tie, recalling growing “magic mushrooms” to kickstart activity on Silk Road, Ross held the attention of the main stage audience of over 8,000 at Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas in the Venetian Expo. I was sitting in one of the best seats in the house: side stage with his mother Lyn and three other supporters of Ross. 

Freedom. Decentralization. Unity.

After over 4,100 days in federal custody and many months in special housing units (solitary confinement), Ross boiled it down to these three words to summarize his first message to the community.

Freedom. Decentralization. Unity.

Following a “21 ways to hack the fiat system” keynote from Michael Saylor, Ross’ three ways to move forward were refreshingly simple. 

You would have thought Ross had been speaking in front of thousands of people for years, seeing how calm and commanding he was on the Nakamoto stage.

Lyn Ulbricht called me a few days after the speech, as I was driving a U-Haul truck full of the art gallery contents across the country, including Ross’ auction items which altogether fetched well over 10 BTC for his fresh start. She mentioned that seeing Ross on that stage giving that incredible speech gave her closure for the whole experience of fighting for her son’s freedom.

I have been fortunate to get to know Lyn Ulbricht over the past few years, helping her plan for our conferences. Hearing her say that this conference gave her some closure to that awful chapter of her life was a moment I’ll never forget. She was his number one supporter during his 11 years serving a double-life sentence. She fought relentlessly to raise awareness for her son’s situation, and now she has begun a new chapter doing similar work with MACS, Mothers Against Cruel Sentencing.

MACS is a nonprofit that is effectively the continuation of the Free Ross mission. Lyn says she feels a calling from God to continue fighting for other “crypto prisoners” and people who are being unjustly punished for their crimes, a violation of the Eight Amendment of the United States Constitution.

She launched MACS at the fourth annual Women of Bitcoin Brunch at Bitcoin 2025, in front of an audience of over 300 of the most influential women at the conference. 

Later during the event, in the same room, Ross used the same stage to address a smaller crowd of supporters for his official luncheon.

This luncheon, held before his speech, is where Justin Sun famously gifted Ross “The Banana,” handing over a duct-taped, real banana in an elaborately designed white shadowbox fit to display in a museum.

I was also in the luncheon room when the banana transaction happened, as event staff. The piece, Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, was a conceptual art statement, I explained to the two men sitting next to me. Like Ross himself at the time, these men were confused. (The original art installation, a banana duct-taped to the wall, was purchased — and eaten — by Justin Sun in November last year.) 

Knowing the significance of this banana, I assumed at the time that Justin Sun was officially giving his edition #2 of Comedian to Ross, as a $6.2 million donation. It wasn’t until my phone call with Lyn Ulbricht days later that she brought up the banana and its questionable provenance that I began to ask: Did Sun really give Ross the banana?

On this call, Lyn mentioned that they had a relative who worked at Sotheby’s, the auctioneer of Justin’s edition of Comedian. This was an obvious first step toward understanding the banana exchange.

Ross himself emailed me shortly after saying, “Lyn tells me you are looking into what happened with me and Justin Sun. Strike Force Nanner are arriving tomorrow with the box Sun gave me, so I’ll let you know if that turns up anything useful.”

And later, “My Sotheby’s connection says: Just spoke with one of the people who worked directly with the artist during the sale. To truly own the piece you have to have the document from the artist; because that is where the ‘value’ lies, they wouldn’t even share images of it for fear of someone making a counterfeit. He’s going to have a think about whether or not what you have has any value, but Justin still owns the ‘real’ banana which is probably why he’s given you vague answers. So, unless he gives me the document (certificate of authenticity), I don’t have anything that would be valued at auction (probably). Oh well.”

I assured him that I thought his banana was still very valuable. Even if this was truly just a 1/1 print of the banana. Until Sun gives Ross the COA, Ross isn’t really the owner the banana; still, a historic event occurred. Sun transferred some sort of magic-decentalized-banana-powers to Ross when he transferred that banana taped to a frame.

The mere existence of Strike Force Nanner, an armored vehicle transporting the banana to Ross, should be enough to signal the provenance transfer of something valuable.

So whether or not Sotheby’s thinks an official transaction occurred, I think Ross has a rare power to duct-tape bananas to walls now and call it something. Sun will just have to send the COA to Ross later in order to seal the peel.

Until then, I extend an open invite to Ross, as the Artist In Residence at Bitcoin Magazine, to help him make and sell prints of his print of the banana. Then maybe the banana can be even more decentralized!

Avant-garde bananas aside, the experience of Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas was unlike any other conference that we’ve thrown, and I can say that having been a part of all six thus far. The key difference this year was Ross’ freedom.

The vibes were beyond bullish in Vegas, which usually means the top is in. But this time it really seems different.

We should pay attention when Michael Saylor gives us his 21-step cheat sheet for the infinite money glitch, and how he plans to leverage the existing financial institutions to accumulate as much bitcoin as he possibly can. This could be a regulatory trap.

We should definitely pay attention when the sitting vice president, JD Vance, tells the conference audience that they’re going to use stablecoins to strengthen the dollar, referring to the new Genius Bill. This is probably the backdoor for CBDCs.

But most importantly: After over 11 years in federal hell, we should pay attention to Ross Ulbricht as he becomes the leader that this space really needs right now.

We are the swarm now.

This post Skull, $5 million; Banana, $6 million; Freedom, Priceless first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Tommy Marcheschi.

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Bitwise Debuts First Ever GameStop Covered Call ETF

Today, Bitwise Asset Management announced the launch of the Bitwise GME Option Income Strategy ETF (IGME), the first-ever covered call ETF centered around GameStop (GME). The fund arrives at a moment where GameStop recently made headlines for its $500 million Bitcoin treasury strategy.

GameStop is embracing bitcoin; we built an income-generating ETF designed to capture that hype and turn it into yield.

Introducing $IGME: The first option income ETF capitalizing on investor interest in @gamestop and their adoption of bitcoin as a treasury asset.

As the fourth… pic.twitter.com/EHaXX9PK7X

— Bitwise (@BitwiseInvest) June 10, 2025

Led by Bitwise’s Head of Alpha Strategies Jeff Park, IGME is the latest addition to Bitwise’s rapidly expanding suite of option income ETFs. The actively managed fund is designed to generate income through a covered call strategy while offering investors exposure to GameStop, a company that has transformed from mall retailer to a key player in the digital asset conversation. 

“IGME is the first covered call strategy built around GameStop, a stock whose historic volatility and growth potential make it a strong fit for this approach,” said Park. “With IGME, investors now have access to an option income ETF based on an equity that sits at the intersection of retail investor popularity, a traditional revenue-generating business, and digital asset adoption.”

GameStop recently disclosed that it holds 4,710 Bitcoin, worth over $500 million at the time of purchase, positioning it among the growing list of public companies making Bitcoin a core treasury component. As of March 31, 2025, over 79 public companies hold a collective $57 billion in Bitcoin—a 159% increase from the previous year, according to Bitcoin Asset Management.

IGME follows the launch of Bitwise’s other option income ETFs, including IMST (Strategy), ICOI (Coinbase), and IMRA (Marathon Digital Holdings). These ETFs aim to deliver monthly income through synthetic covered call strategies that leverage options rather than direct equity holdings. 

“At Bitwise, our mission is to help investors gain access to the full range of opportunities emerging in crypto,” said Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley. “We’re excited to add IGME to our suite of option income ETFs to help investors capitalize on the volatility of companies in the space.”

IGME plans to announce its first monthly distribution on July 24 and carries an expense ratio of 0.98%.  

This post Bitwise Debuts First Ever GameStop Covered Call ETF first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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Robert Mitchnick Discusses BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF IBIT Success On Bloomberg

Today, the Head of Digital Assets of BlackRock Robert Mitchnick, at the Bloomberg ETF IQ, talked about what’s really driving the surge in Bitcoin ETFs.

“It’s a lot of things coming together. Out of the gate was retail and investor demand…” said Mitchnick. “Now, more recently, we’ve seen just steady progress of more wealth advisor adoption, more institutional adoption. It’s been a mix of people who it’s the first time that they’ve invested in anything in the crypto space. And then on the other hand, you have lots of people who’ve been invested in Bitcoin for a long time and they’re taking advantage of the ETP wrapper.”

JUST IN: $11.5 trillion BlackRock’s Robert Mitchnick said wealth advisor adoption of Bitcoin is “very early” pic.twitter.com/UqiarMWEvV

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 9, 2025

When it comes to institutional adoption, Mitchnick says we’re still early. ETF approvals usually take years, but some firms are fast-tracking the process.

“We’ve seen that fast tracked by a number of firms, and we talk about fast tracking,” stated Mitchnick. “We’re talking about, you know, quarters, not months. And slowly but surely, you’ve seen, I think, an acceleration, particularly in the last couple of months of more notable firms lowering barriers, granting approvals to their advisors to use these.”

Bitcoin’s volatility has declined recently, making it more appealing for institutions seeking diversification. However, it remains volatile, but its risk and return profile differs from traditional assets.

“There’s no question it’s relatively novel technology,” Mitchnick commented. “Even though the volatility has come down, it’s still volatile, but at the same time its risk and return drivers are markedly different from most of the rest of the assets in a traditional portfolio, and that’s important. And so when institutions are looking at this, they’re heavily focused on that correlation and whether it’s zero or even in some periods negative, because then the portfolio construction case is very compelling to them.”

About a dozen Bitcoin ETFs currently compete in the market, and demand remains strong.

“Well, a lot of them have been, you know, very successful, too,” stated Mitchnick. “Obviously, it has been the leader in the category by a fair margin. But there’s been such demand that, you know, it’s been exciting and there’s lots of products in the space and that’s a good thing.”

This post Robert Mitchnick Discusses BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF IBIT Success On Bloomberg first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust Shatters ETF Growth Record, Surpassing $70 Billion in Just 341 Days

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has officially made history. The Bitcoin ETF surged past $70 billion in assets under management (AUM), reaching the milestone in just 341 trading days. This achievement makes IBIT the fastest ETF to ever hit that threshold. 

JUST IN: BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF becomes the fastest ETF in history to surpass $70 billion AUM pic.twitter.com/kZkXhjEvq0

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 9, 2025

To put that into perspective, the previous record-holder—SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)—took 1,691 days to reach the same milestone. “5x faster than the old record held by GLD of 1,691 days,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote in a post on X. Other ETFs like VOO (1,701 days), IEFA (1,773 days), and IEMG (2,063 days) also lag far behind IBIT’s rapid growth.

The explosive rise in IBIT’s AUM coincides with Bitcoin’s continued rally. At the time of reporting, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading above $108,000, up more than 2.06%, and sitting just under 4% below its all-time high of nearly $112,000 set last month. 

BlackRock’s accumulation strategy has placed it at the forefront of institutional Bitcoin investment. According to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, the firm now holds over 663,000 bitcoin—more than Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, which famously owns 582,000 BTC. 

The price surge and ETF milestone reflect a broader institutional embrace of Bitcoin as a legitimate and increasingly preferred asset class. The record breaking pace of IBIT’s growth underscores the demand from investors looking for regulated exposure to Bitcoin through traditional financial products. 

The chart clearly visualizes the disparity in ETF adoption timelines, with IBIT’s steep, vertical ascent dramatically outpacing its peers in the race to $70 billion. It’s a testament to the accelerating pace at which capital is flowing into Bitcoin markets.

As Bitcoin continues to hold just below its peak, and institutional products like IBIT grow at unprecedented speeds, all eyes are on what comes next—not just for Bitcoin, but for the legacy financial industry now being reshaped by it. 

This post BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust Shatters ETF Growth Record, Surpassing $70 Billion in Just 341 Days first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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TakeOver Successfully Hosts Second Annual BitGala Celebrating Bitcoin in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, NV, May 26, 2025 – TakeOver, Magic Eden, Spark, and Stacks successfully hosted their second annual BitGala on May 26th at the Wynn in Las Vegas. The celebration brought together over 200 Bitcoin industry leaders and community members for an evening dedicated to celebrating Bitcoin. 

The BitGala was designed as a curated gathering focused on inspiring continued development, education, and adoption while reflecting on the strides Bitcoin has made toward a future of open, decentralized money. The event successfully brought together key leaders, creating meaningful opportunities for collaboration and strategic partnerships within the Bitcoin space. 

“BitGala celebrates our partnership with Spark, marketing a major leap forward for Bitcoin DeFi,” said Elizabeth Olson, Head of Marketing for Bitcoin at Magic Eden. “As the #1 Bitcoin app, Magic Eden has spent the past few years pushing Bitcoin L1 to its limits, always with the goal of making Bitcoin more usable, fast, and fun without compromising its core ethos. We believe Spark has the potential to unlock a new era of building on Bitcoin, and we’re thrilled to be leading that charge together.” 

“The BitGala was a stunning celebration of Bitcoin culture where luxury meets the cypherpunk spirit. We’re proving that Bitcoin isn’t just a protocol, it’s a movement connecting freedom-minded people from art, fashion, finance, and more. To us, it was a pure signal that people are starting to see what Stacks has been building all along: a future where Bitcoin isn’t just held, but used for apps, defi, and real ownership.” – Rena Shah, COO of Stacks. 

Set against the backdrop of the Sphere, the evening brought together innovators, investors, and community leaders for a night dedicated to celebrating Bitcoin’s growth and the people driving its future. 

The program opened with a welcome reception, followed by gourmet hors d’oeuvres and vibrant conversations. A keynote and honors segment recognized those making meaningful strides in Bitcoin adoption and development. Guests were then invited to explore a premium tequila tasting experience curated by Reach, and indulge in interactive gourmet chef stations. 

“Our team has been fortunate to be part of the Bitcoin community since 2016, so we’re thrilled to see all the progress on display almost 10 years later at Bitcoin 2025. The energy in the room at BitGala was electric—from conversations sparking new partnerships to shared reflections on what’s next for Bitcoin—it was a powerful reminder of why we’re all here: to build an open, decentralized financial system that empowers everyone.” noted Kelley Weaver, Founder and CEO, Melrose PR and Founder, Bitwire. 

This unforgettable gathering—hosted in partnership with leading organizations including Magic Eden, Spark, and Stacks—was more than a celebration. It was a call to continue pushing forward innovation, education, and adoption in

the Bitcoin ecosystem. BitGala was made possible through the generous support of key sponsors and partners who share Takeover’s commitment to fostering connections in the web3 space. 

“We’re focused on making Bitcoin more useful for everyone, and events like this remind us that we’re not alone in that mission. It was inspiring to connect with others who share the vision of a more open, decentralized financial future powered by Bitcoin.” – Spark Team 

Presenting Sponsors: 

• Magic Eden – The largest NFT marketplace and Runes platform. 
• Spark – The fastest, cheapest, most UX-friendly way to build financial apps and launch assets on Bitcoin.
• Stacks – A Bitcoin L2 enabling smart contracts & apps with Bitcoin as secure base layer. 

Supporting Partners: 

• Reach Ventures – a gaming-focused VC firm that actively invests in both early-stage and demo-ready game studios.
• Arch Network – a Bitcoin-native platform for building decentralized apps and smart contracts directly on Bitcoin. 
• Melrose PR – An onchain communications firm that has been focused on the crypto industry exclusively for almost a decade. 
• Bitwire – The modern newswire reimagined for today’s communications professionals. 

The collaborative support from these organizations was instrumental in delivering a memorable event for all attendees. 

Actor and comedian T.J. Miller was also a speaker at the event: “The bitcoin conference 2025 was incredible for so many reasons. It was such a joyful journey to be with so many like-minded people (all of whom have been laughed at) who share the same values: freedom, community, hope, and getting rich- the highpoint was the BitGala. I bought incredibly large expensive shoes for the specific purpose of showing up to the gala non-verbally saying bitcoin destroying Fiat, well that’s big shoes to fill… and we’ll fill ‘em. I can’t wait to return next year. I will wear more orange.” 

About TakeOver 

TakeOver is the experiential agency at the forefront of culture and innovation in the crypto space, known for curating powerful moments that educate, connect, and inspire. With a global Bitcoin Dinner Series and their annual flagship event, BitGala, they’ve become a cornerstone of community-building in Web3. Last year, they made headlines with a dramatic takeover of Nashville’s Parthenon—setting the bar for what crypto gatherings can be. 

About Magic Eden 

Magic Eden is the easiest platform to trade all digital assets onchain. As the #1 Bitcoin app and largest NFT marketplace, we provide a seamless trading experience to everyone. Magic Eden’s acquisition of Slingshot has expanded their capabilities to offer frictionless trading of over 5,000,000 tokens across all major chains. Magic Eden’s expanded product suite includes a cross-chain wallet, powerful trading tools, and the ability to mint, collect, and seamlessly trade NFTs and tokens.

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Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. Readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence before acting on any information presented in this article.

This post TakeOver Successfully Hosts Second Annual BitGala Celebrating Bitcoin in Las Vegas first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by TakeOver.

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Bitcoin vs Stablecoins: Bitcoin is an Unreplicable Lifeline in Authoritarian Regimes

Eight years ago, I wrote a book about pitching technology. The core lesson was simple: To convince skeptics, you must show your solution’s value isn’t just better — it’s uniquely better. Years later, as I began advocating for Bitcoin’s role in humanitarian crises, this lesson resurfaced with urgency. Skeptical friends asked “Can’t stablecoins do the same?”, “What’s so unique about Bitcoin?”

The answer lies not in theory, but in the protest rallies of Abuja, the blackouts of Caracas and the underground schools that girls secretly attend in Kabul — places where 1.7 billion unbanked, 250 million battling high inflation or hyperinflation and 2.3 billion under authoritarian rule fight to survive. These stories rarely breach Western media algorithms, which act as a shadow-ban of the developing world, favoring headlines about ETFs over existential financial struggles. 

It doesn’t take too deep a look into these parts of the world to discover that Bitcoin is not only vital but uniquely vital in a way stablecoins and other altcoins do not and cannot replicate. Let’s look at three nations that are adopting Bitcoin over stablecoins and why.

Nigeria: Where Sovereignty Outweighs Stability

Context: 223 million people, 95 million live on less than $1.90 a day. 23.71% inflation (April 2025), 18.3-20 million children not in school. Only 30% have access to safe drinking water. 

In 2024, Nigeria faced severe economic and political upheaval, with the local currency naira crashing to a record 1,643 per dollar by August — down from 460 in early 2023. This not only eroded savings and purchasing power, it eroded trust in the government and led to widespread protests over soaring inflation and fuel costs. These protests were triggered by widespread anger at government economic mismanagement and policies that failed to halt the economic slide. 

On occasion a stable currency, the naira’s collapse left families and businesses struggling to afford imports into a dollar-dependent economy. Public frustration intensified and with it, political instability. This volatile climate of currency devaluation, restricted financial access and social unrest set the stage for Nigerians to turn to alternative financial systems like cryptocurrencies, seeking solutions to safeguard their wealth amid a crumbling economic framework.

But the government wasn’t about to make that easy for its citizens. Nigeria’s government restricted stablecoin. “Illicit flows,” aka money laundering, was often used as the government’s official reason for anti-stablecoin actions. More likely the Nigerian government took action because they viewed stablecoins as undermining its monetary policy by enabling unregulated capital flows and currency substitution, reducing its central bank’s control over money supply and exchange rates. 

No doubt, bitcoin can be seen as undermining monetary policy in some similar ways, the difference being, Nigeria’s government was not able to curtail bitcoin’s usage as effectively due to its decentralized nature. 

The specific actions Nigeria’s government took came in three forms:

• Banking Restrictions and U.S. dollar supply shortages had the effect of limiting fiat on-ramps/off-ramps for stablecoins like USDT, which required KYC-compliant exchanges. P2P bitcoin trading soared after the restrictions, as users bypassed banking controls using private wallets and DEXs.
• Regulatory Crackdowns: Nigeria’s government took specific legal action to sue unlicensed USDT traders. Nigerian authorities then launched a broader attack, accusing crypto-trading platform Binance of “exploitation, devaluation of the naira and money laundering.”
• Premiums and Volatility: Regulatory pressures and FX shortages likely inflated premiums, making them less practical than bitcoin, which operates without centralized dependencies.

All three measures — banking restrictions, regulatory crackdowns and premiums/volatility — impacted bitcoin a lot less than it impacted stablecoins. Stablecoins’ reliance on centralized issuers, banking rails and KYC-compliant exchanges made them vulnerable to government actions, as we saw when USDT trading was disrupted. By contrast, Bitcoin’s decentralized, permissionless nature enabled Nigerians to bypass restrictions via P2P platforms and private wallets, sustaining its adoption.

Afghanistan: How Bitcoin Was a Financial Lifeline After the Taliban Takeover

Context: Taliban rule, most women are unbanked, Afghanistan’s currency devalued 50% between 2021 and 2022. Eighty-five percent live on less than $1 a day, 80% of school-aged Afghan girls and young women are out of school. 

When the Taliban seized control in August 2021, Afghanistan’s banking system collapsed under sanctions, leaving citizens — especially women — with few options. Traditional remittance networks like Hawala charged exorbitant fees (5-20%), while frozen central bank reserves made dollar access nearly impossible. In this vacuum, bitcoin emerged as a critical tool for survival. In 2021, Bitcoin Magazine previously reported how women were safeguarding Bitcoin seed phrases as a last line of financial defense. After the Taliban banned crypto in 2022, peer-to-peer bitcoin trading persisted underground.

Why Bitcoin Outperformed Stablecoins in Crisis
Stablecoins, reliant on centralized issuers and dollar-backed banking rails, faltered under Afghanistan’s unique constraints. U.S. sanctions froze $7 billion in central bank funds, which cut off the dollar liquidity needed for stablecoins like USDT. While Forbes India noted isolated cases of stablecoin use for salaries, most Afghans found them unusable. Meanwhile, sanctions blocked fiat conversions and the Taliban’s November 2021 foreign currency ban further restricted access. Bitcoin, by contrast, once again thrived precisely because of its decentralized design: no intermediaries to freeze transactions, no KYC to expose users and a global network that resisted shutdowns. Where stablecoins were hobbled by their ties to traditional finance, Bitcoin enabled direct, pseudonymous transfers.

Venezuela: Scarcity Trumps “Stability”

Context: The Venezuelan bolívar has lost 99.99% value since 2018; 76% of Venezuelans live on $1.90/day. Over 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2014 due to economic collapse and political instability. Over 10% of children under five in Venezuela suffer from stunting due to chronic malnutrition.

Carlos, a Caracas mechanic, measures his life in bolívars — or rather, the absence of them. Since 2018, Venezuela’s currency has shed 99.99% of its value, Carlos explains, Carlos is an example of many Venezuelans who used bitcoin, not stablecoins, to preserve wealth as the bolívar continued to lose value. The government introduced strict capital controls into the market so that even if you somehow manage to earn USD, you can’t get the money transferred to your bank account.

Bitcoin provides a financial lifeline for people like Carlos, unlike stablecoins that are pegged to a USD that itself lost 18% in purchasing power since 2020.

That’s right: People like Carlos, schooled in the hard knocks of currency hyper-debasement, realized earlier than many in the West that stablecoins are not really stable. 

Stablecoins by their name present the appearance of being a safe harbor, because they are pegged to the USD, but this is akin to anchoring a ship to a midsized rock on the seabed. This is a lot better than not anchoring your ship at all, because you avoid the immediate tempestuous seas of your local currency’s hyperinflation. However, over time you still slowly drift into the open ocean of dollar debasement. Because the USD itself loses purchasing power, this slowly but inexorably drags stablecoin holders toward the same inflationary waters they sought to escape.

Venezuela’s lesson mirrors Nigeria’s: in economies gutted by hyperinflation, slow erosion of wealth is deadlier than volatility.

How Governments Target Stablecoin Liquidity in Authoritarian Regimes

What we’ve seen in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Venezuela are not anomalies. Around the world, authoritarian governments don’t just dislike stablecoins — they systematically dismantle access to them. Their tactics fall into six categories. Let’s take a look at these, using examples from authoritarian regimes around the world. 

1. Proposed Stablecoin Bans (e.g., Brazil): Criminalizing stablecoin trading or payments.
2. Banking Blockades (e.g., China): Severing fiat gateways to freeze stablecoin and crypto liquidity. While the ban in theory applied to Bitcoin too, the Bitcoin ban was not fully enforced due to Bitcoin’s decentralized architecture. Reuters for example commented, “repeated (Bitcoin) prohibitions highlight the challenge of closing loopholes and identifying bitcoin-related transactions.”
3. KYC Enforcement (e.g., Hong Kong): Forcing strict identity checks for stablecoin transactions, which discourages use in regimes with heavy surveillance.
4. State-sponsored hacks (e.g., North Korea): Drain stablecoin reserves and disrupt market confidence.
5. Licensing Strangleholds (e.g., Russia’s proposed rules): Imposing strict licensing for stablecoin issuers or platforms, to limit their operation.
6. Surveillance and Arrests (e.g., China’s OTC crackdowns): Monitoring and penalizing anyone involved in stablecoin trading.

The Lifeline: Why None of These Six Strategies Work On Bitcoin

Unlike stablecoins — which depend on centralized issuers and platforms vulnerable to regulation, hacking or shutdown — Bitcoin operates beyond any government’s grasp. Its decentralized network of miners and nodes has no single point of failure, no CEO to pressure and no intermediary to block. While authorities can freeze stablecoin transactions or impose strict licensing rules, Bitcoin transactions flow peer-to-peer, bypassing traditional choke points. Wallets remain private, miners are globally distributed and the network resists censorship by design.

Governments may restrict stablecoins with relative ease, but Bitcoin’s architecture ensures it stays out of their reach. 

For example, Russia has explored cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, to bypass Western sanctions — particularly since the 2022 Ukraine invasion. State-backed initiatives, like their proposed centralized exchange, were set up to facilitate cross-border payments in crypto to avoid SWIFT restrictions and frozen foreign reserves.

In parallel, Russia’s central bank has imposed restrictions on foreign stablecoins like USDT to tighten control over domestic financial flows. On 18 May, CoinTurk alleged that Russia is now seeking to limit USDT’s use in domestic transactions, encouraging the adoption of a state-controlled stablecoin. This aligns with efforts to prevent capital flight, ensure compliance with AML regulations and promote “friendly” digital assets that align with national security goals.

Why both? Russia’s dual approach reflects a fascinating strategic nuance: They leveraged bitcoin for international sanctions evasion while restricting foreign stablecoins domestically to maintain economic control and reduce reliance on USD-pegged assets ( as these are subject to foreign influence, for example Tether’s ability to freeze wallets).

When it comes to authoritarian regimes that want strict capital controls, bitcoin is antifragile; stablecoins are not.

The Altcoin Mirage

OK, so stablecoins don’t offer a viable alternative to bitcoin. But what about other altcoins?

It turns out these don’t work so well either because centralized altcoins such as XRP, Solana and Ethereum replicate stablecoins’ fatal flaw: dependency. Developers can reverse transactions (as Ethereum did in 2016), validators can freeze wallets and the often uncapped supply of altcoins mimic fiat currency debasement. 

The failure is systemic. For example, when Nigeria banned Binance in 2024, Solana-based USDC users found themselves stranded, but bitcoin traders simply pivoted to decentralized exchanges like HodlHodl. 

The common theme is that stablecoins do not replace bitcoin because: 

• Inflation hedges require scarcity and anchoring to an asset that’s not losing purchasing power itself. Stablecoins lack these two properties.
• USD scarcity in countries such as Nigeria makes stablecoins unreliable (premiums hit 60%+ during FX crunches).
• Political risk: The government can’t ban bitcoin, but it can (and does) target stablecoin liquidity.

People in autocratic nations use bitcoin not despite its volatility, but because its sovereignty-preserving properties outweigh short-term price swings. Stablecoins are tools for transactions; bitcoin is a tool for survival.

The Myopia of Privilege

The assumption that stablecoins can replicate bitcoin’s utility often stems from myopia shaped by stable currencies, functioning democracies and robust banking systems — luxuries foreign to the 2.3 billion people under authoritarian rule and the 250 million battling high inflation or hyperinflation. Western commentators, insulated by privilege, tout stablecoins as “good enough,” unaware that in Abuja, a frozen USDT account can erase a family’s savings overnight, or that in Kabul, stablecoins’ reliance on KYC checks excludes 80% of women from the financial system. Media algorithms impose an effective shadow ban by simply not reporting on parts of the world deemed “not of interest” to the West, exacerbating this disconnect.

To those shaping the narrative: Look beyond your banking app. Ask yourself why Nigerian P2P bitcoin volume dwarfs France’s, or why Afghan refugees memorize seed phrases instead of trusting Tether. The first-hand accounts are these. So is the data that shows these stories are not anomalies but rather evidence of Bitcoin uniquely meeting a pressing need to a huge user community in a way stablecoins cannot. Stablecoins and altcoins innovate within systems that have already failed the Global South. Bitcoin exists outside them. Better conclusions begin with curiosity, not assumptions. Bitcoin’s value isn’t in replacing stablecoins — it’s in doing what they fundamentally cannot do.

Let’s stop projecting our realities onto theirs and start listening.

This post Bitcoin vs Stablecoins: Bitcoin is an Unreplicable Lifeline in Authoritarian Regimes first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Daniel Batten.

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President Trump’s Truth Social Files S-1 Form For Bitcoin ETF

Today, Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. (Nasdaq, NYSE Texas: DJT) filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a Form S-1 for their upcoming Truth Social Bitcoin ETF.

The ETF, which will hold bitcoin directly, is designed to track the bitcoin’s price performance. 

“Truth Social Bitcoin ETF, B.T. is a Nevada business trust that issues beneficial interests in its net assets,” stated the Form S-1. “The assets of the Trust consist primarily of bitcoin held by a custodian on behalf of the Trust. The Trust seeks to reflect generally the performance of the price of bitcoin.”

The ETF is sponsored by Yorkville America Digital, LLC and will trade under NYSE Arca. The Trust’s assets primarily consist of bitcoin held by Foris DAX Trust Company, LLC, the designated bitcoin custodian. Crypto.com will act as the ETF’s prime execution agent and liquidity provider.

“Shares will be offered to the public from time to time at varying prices that will reflect the price of bitcoin and the trading price of the Shares on New York Stock Exchange Arca, Inc. at the time of the offer,” mentioned the Form S-1.

While the ETF offers investors a regulated avenue for bitcoin exposure, the Trust warned of several risks related to digital assets:

• Loss, theft, or compromise of private keys could result in permanent loss of bitcoin.
• Bitcoin’s reliance on blockchain and Internet technologies makes it vulnerable to disruptions and cyber threats.
• Environmental and regulatory pressures tied to high electricity use in bitcoin mining could impact market stability.
• Potential forks or protocol failures in the Bitcoin Network may lead to volatility and uncertainty in asset value.

Last week, during an interview at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference, Donald Trump Jr. announced that TMTG and Truth Social were forming a Bitcoin treasury with $2.5 billion. “We’re seriously on crypto—we’re seriously on Bitcoin,” said Trump Jr. “We’re in three major deals. I believe we’re at the beginning of what will be the future of finance. And the opportunity is massive.”

The day after that interview, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., joined by American Bitcoin Executive Chairman and Board Member Mike Ho, CEO Matt Prusak, and Altcoin Daily founder Aaron Arnold, discussed the future of Bitcoin.

“The whole system is broken and now all of the sudden you have crypto which solves all the problems,” commented Eric Trump. “It makes everything cheaper, it makes everything faster, it makes it safer, it makes it more transparent. It makes the whole system more functional.“

“Everybody wants Bitcoin. Everybody is buying Bitcoin,” Eric added.

This post President Trump’s Truth Social Files S-1 Form For Bitcoin ETF first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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Support The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) To Protect Noncustodial Services

With a lot of regulatory talk centered around The GENIUS Act and The CLARITY Act (the market structure bill) right now, it’s important that Bitcoin enthusiasts also pay attention to and support The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) — H.R. 1747.

The act, which was reintroduced to Congress on May 21, 2025 by Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), provides “safe harbor from licensing and registration for certain non-controlling blockchain developers and providers of blockchain services.”

Critical Bitcoin legislation was introduced last week & it needs our support

The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) by @GOPMajorityWhip and @RitchieTorres protects self-custody developers, miners, and nodes from being classified as money transmitters.

Thread pic.twitter.com/cJ8Ogno3h5

— Nick Neuman (@Nneuman) May 30, 2025

It also stipulates that no blockchain developer or provider of a blockchain service shall be treated as a money transmitter unless the developers or providers behind the project have control over user funds.

This bill is relevant because the developers for both Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash are currently facing charges for operating unlicensed money transmitter businesses, despite the fact that the developers for neither of these technologies ever had control over user funds.

It’s also important because, under the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) didn’t just classify privacy services as money transmitters, but ancillary services such as Lightning nodes, rollup sequencers, and other Bitcoin and blockchain technology, as well.

If the BRCA isn’t enacted into law, there is a risk that all Bitcoin and crypto wallets as well as other noncustodial services and technologies will be made illegal and/or subject to KYC/AML laws.

While Rep. Emmer and Rep. Torres’ reintroducing this bill is a positive step, the congressmen need our help in making the BRCA a priority for this current Congress.

To help, go to SaveOurWallets.org and follow the directions on the website to contact the elected officials that represent your district and state in the federal government and tell them that you would like to see them support the BRCA.

But they need our help, we need to make clear that the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act is *the* priority this Congress for our space. Go to https://t.co/fXVqSQ2nUv, put in your ZIP code, and make a quick call. It works.

— saveourwallets (@saveourwalets) June 3, 2025

If this act doesn’t pass, we will face significant hurdles regarding the scaling of Bitcoin and other blockchains as well as around privacy.

Yes, yes, I know some of you are saying to yourselves Bitcoin will win regardless of our actions (or that it’s already won) and that we don’t need to engage with politicians in the process.

I’m here to say 1.) this isn’t necessarily true, 2.) there are four developers currently facing trial (the Samourai and Tornado Cash developers) and pushing to get this bill passed may help them, 3.) if this bill doesn’t pass, scaling Bitcoin may be much more difficult, and 4.) there’s a reality in which we give up a lot of our legal right to privacy when using Bitcoin if the bill doesn’t pass.

So, with these points in mind, pick up the phone and/or send an email to your elected representatives and tell them you’d like to see them support the BRCA.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post Support The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) To Protect Noncustodial Services first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.

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Adam Back Invests SEK 21 Million to H100 Group Bitcoin Treasury Strategy

Today, H100 Group AB announced it has entered a SEK 21 million convertible loan from an investment agreement with Adam Back, with the option to expand his investment to SEK 277 million through a five-tranche convertible loan deal. The proceeds will be used to buy Bitcoin in alignment with H100 Group’s long-term Bitcoin treasury strategy.

H100 Group AB (Ticker: H100) secures a SEK 21M ($2.1M) commitment from @adam3us , with rights to invest an additional SEK 128M ($12.8M) in tranches—bringing the total contemplated raise to SEK 277M (~$27.7M). pic.twitter.com/c0HgMSRxut

— H100 (@H100Group) June 3, 2025

Under the agreement, Back may invest up to SEK 128 million across four additional tranches, with guaranteed participation of at least 50%. Each tranche is twice his committed amount, demonstrating his support for H100’s long-term growth.

The press release said, “Adam Back may request the Second Tranche within 90 days from signing of the Initial Tranche, the Third Tranche within 90 days from signing of the Second Tranche, the Fourth Tranche within 90 days from signing of the Third Tranche and the Fifth Tranche within ninety 90 days from signing of the Fourth Tranche. In the event Adam Back does not request a Future Tranche within the deadline, the right to request subsequent Future Tranches lapses.”

The convertible loans have no interest and have a five year maturity. At any time, Back may convert the loans into shares of the Company. Conversion prices are fixed per tranche: SEK 1.75 per share for the initial tranche, rising to SEK 5.00 by the fifth tranche. H100 retains the right to force conversion if the stock price exceeds the conversion rate by 33% over a 20 day period. Full conversion of the initial tranche would result in 12 million new shares and a 9.3% dilution.

“Upon request of a tranche Adam Back is obliged to invest in the relevant Tranche with SEK 15,750,000 in the second tranche, SEK 23,625,000 in the third tranche, SEK 35,437,500 in the fourth tranche, and SEK 53,156,250 in the fifth tranche,” stated the press release. “The contemplated size for each tranche is twice the entitled amount of Adam Back.”

“We have been around since 2014 and we work with our investors to put Bitcoin in a balance sheet back then and since then,” said Adam Back at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference. “I think the way to look at the treasury companies is that Bitcoin is effectively the harder rate. It’s very hard to outperform Bitcoin most people that invest in things since Bitcoin around thought I should put that in Bitcoin and not in the other thing.”

This post Adam Back Invests SEK 21 Million to H100 Group Bitcoin Treasury Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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How Strategy (MSTR) Built Their Capital Stack to Accelerate Bitcoin Accumulation

MicroStrategy—now operating as Strategy—has built the most aggressive Bitcoin treasury in the world. But its true innovation isn’t just holding Bitcoin. It’s in how it finances the accumulation of Bitcoin at scale without giving up control or diluting shareholder value.

The engine behind this? A meticulously designed capital stack—a multi-tiered structure of debt, preferred stock, and equity that appeals to different types of investors, each with unique risk, yield, and volatility preferences.

This is more than corporate finance—it’s a blueprint for Bitcoin-native capital formation.

What Is a Capital Stack?

A capital stack refers to the layers of capital a company uses to finance its operations and strategic goals. Each layer has its own return profile, risk level, and repayment priority in the event of liquidation.

Strategy’s capital stack is designed to do one thing exceptionally well: convert fiat capital into Bitcoin exposure—efficiently, at scale, and without compromise.

The Stack: Ordered by Priority

Strategy’s capital stack comprises five core instruments:

1. Convertible Notes
2. Strife Preferred Stock ($STRF)
3. Strike Preferred Stock ($STRK)
4. Stride Preferred Stock ($STRD)
5. Common Equity ($MSTR)

These layers are ranked from highest to lowest in repayment priority. What makes this structure unique is how each layer balances downside protection, yield, and Bitcoin exposure—offering institutional investors fixed-income alternatives with varying degrees of correlation to Bitcoin.

Convertible Notes: Senior Debt with Optional Upside

Strategy’s capital stack begins with convertible notes—senior unsecured debt that can convert into equity.

• Downside: Low risk, high priority in liquidation
• Upside: Modest unless converted
• Appeal: Institutional debt investors seeking protection with optional Bitcoin-adjacent upside

These notes were Strategy’s earliest fundraising tools, enabling the company to raise billions in low-interest environments to accumulate Bitcoin without issuing equity.

Strife ($STRF): Investment-Grade Yield

Strife is a perpetual preferred stock designed to mimic high-grade fixed income.

• 10% cumulative dividend, paid in cash
• $100 liquidation preference
• No conversion rights or Bitcoin upside
• Compounding penalties on unpaid dividends
• Low volatility, medium risk profile

Strife targets conservative capital—allocators who want predictable income without equity or crypto exposure. It’s senior to other preferreds and common stock, making it a high-quality fixed-income proxy built atop a Bitcoin treasury.

Strike ($STRK): Yield + Bitcoin Optionality

Strike is convertible preferred stock—bridging fixed income and equity upside.

• 8% cumulative dividend
• Convertible into $MSTR at $1,000 strike
• Paid in cash or Class A shares
• Bitcoin exposure via conversion option
• Medium volatility, low risk

Strike appeals to investors who want income with optional participation in Bitcoin upside. In bullish Bitcoin cycles, the conversion option becomes valuable—offering a hybrid between bond-like stability and equity-like potential.

Stride ($STRD): High Yield, High Risk

Stride is the most junior preferred—non-cumulative, perpetual stock issued with high yield and few protections.

• >10% dividend, only if declared
• No compounding, no conversion, no voting rights
• Highest relative risk among preferreds
• Liquidation priority above common equity, but below all others

Stride plays a crucial role. Its issuance improves the credit quality of Strife, adding a subordinate capital buffer beneath it—similar to how mezzanine debt protects senior tranches in structured finance.

Stride attracts yield-hungry investors, enabling Strategy to raise capital without compromising more senior layers.

Common Equity ($MSTR): Pure Bitcoin Beta

At the base is Strategy’s common equity—the most volatile, least protected, but highest potential instrument in the stack.

• Unlimited upside
• No dividend, no priority
• Full exposure to Bitcoin volatility
• Voting rights, long-term ownership

Common equity is for conviction-driven investors. Over the past four years, this layer has attracted capital from funds and individuals aligned with Strategy’s Bitcoin thesis—investors who want maximal upside from a corporate Bitcoin strategy.

The Big Picture: Saylor Is Targeting the Fixed Income Market

This isn’t just a financing mechanism—it’s a direct challenge to the $130 trillion global bond market.

By issuing instruments like $STRF, $STRK, and $STRD, Strategy is offering Bitcoin-adjacent yield vehicles that absorb demand from across the capital spectrum:

• Institutional investors seeking investment-grade yield
• Hedge funds chasing structured upside
• Yield hunters willing to go down the stack for returns

Each instrument behaves like a synthetic bond, yet all are backed by a Bitcoin accumulation engine.

As Director of Bitcoin Strategy at Metaplanet, Dylan LeClair put it: “Saylor is coming for the entire fixed income market.”

Rather than issue traditional bonds, Saylor is constructing a Bitcoin-native capital stack—one that unlocks liquidity without ever selling the underlying asset.

Why It Matters: A Model for Bitcoin Treasury Strategy

Strategy’s capital structure is more than innovation—it’s a financial operating system for any public company that wants to monetize Bitcoin’s rise while maintaining capital discipline.

Key takeaways:

• Every layer matches a specific investor need: From low-risk debt to speculative yield
• Capital flows in, Bitcoin stays put: Preserving treasury position while scaling
• No single instrument dominates: The stack is diversified by design
• Control is retained: Most securities are non-voting, non-convertible

For corporations serious about building a Bitcoin-native balance sheet, this is the playbook to study.

Saylor isn’t just stacking Bitcoin—he’s engineering the financial infrastructure for a monetary paradigm shift.

Disclaimer: This content was written on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations. This article is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be interpreted as an invitation or solicitation to acquire, purchase, or subscribe for securities.

This post How Strategy (MSTR) Built Their Capital Stack to Accelerate Bitcoin Accumulation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nick Ward.

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Tether Group & Bitfinex Transferred 25,812 BTC to Jack Mallers’ Twenty One Capital

Today, Tether Group and Bitfinex have transferred a combined 25,812.22 BTC to support their investment in Twenty One Capital, a newly formed Bitcoin-native company set to go public through a business combination with Cantor Equity Partners (Nasdaq: CEP).

Tether moved 14,000 BTC to an address of Twenty One Capital (XXI) and previously transferred 4,812.22 BTC to another address of Twenty One Capital as part of their investment in the company.

JUST IN: Tether sends 18,812 #Bitcoin worth almost $2 billion to Jack Maller’s Twenty One Capital pic.twitter.com/Oy18iPnUzO

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 2, 2025

Bitfinex, in parallel, has sent 7,000 BTC to an address of Twenty One Capital, also as part of its investment.

JUST IN: Bitfinex sent 7,000 #Bitcoin worth $731 million to Jack Mallers’ Twenty One Capital pic.twitter.com/kshqZwHz34

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 2, 2025

These Bitcoin transfers come a little over a month after Twenty One Capital and CEP announced that it was raising $585 million in additional capital at the closing of the business combination. The raise was to feature $385 million in convertible senior secured notes and $200 million in PIPE (private investment in public equity) financing, with proceeds expected to be used for further Bitcoin purchases and general corporate purposes. Once finalized, the company anticipates launching with over 42,000 BTC, positioning it as the third-largest Bitcoin treasury in the world.

“Markets need reliable money to measure value and allocate capital efficiently,” said the Co-Founder and CEO of Twenty One Jack Mallers. “We believe that Bitcoin is the answer, and Twenty One is how we bring that answer to public markets. Our mission is simple: to become the most successful company in Bitcoin, the most valuable financial opportunity of our time. We’re not here to beat the market, we’re here to build a new one. A public stock, built by Bitcoiners, for Bitcoiners.”

The announcement comes just days after Mallers announced a new Bitcoin backed loan platform at Strike during the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas. The system will offer interest rates between 9-13%, allowing clients to borrow between $10,000 and $1 billion using Bitcoin as collateral.

“All these professional economists, they are like Bitcoin is risky and volatile,” stated Mallers. “No it’s not. This is the magnificent 7 one year volatility and the orange one in the middle is Bitcoin. It’s no more risky and volatile. It’s a little bit more volatile than Apple, but is far less more volatile than Tesla.”

“Life is short,” commented Jack. “Take the trip, but with bitcoin you just get to take a better one.”

This post Tether Group & Bitfinex Transferred 25,812 BTC to Jack Mallers’ Twenty One Capital first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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Amboss Launches Rails, a Self-Custodial Bitcoin Yield Service

Amboss, a leader in AI-driven solutions for the Bitcoin Lightning Network, today announced Rails, a groundbreaking self-custodial Bitcoin yield service. According to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine, it’s designed to empower companies, custodians, and high net worth individuals. This allows participants to earn a yield on their Bitcoin.

Big news from @TheBitcoinConf
!
We’re thrilled to announce Rails—a self-custodial Bitcoin yield service that empowers you to earn on your BTC while supercharging the Lightning Network.

Let’s bring Bitcoin to the World.https://t.co/3WYYvB95hP

— AMBOSS (@ambosstech) May 29, 2025

Rails also launched a secure way for Liquidity Providers (LPs) to hold all custody of their Bitcoin while generating returns from liquidity leases and payment routing, although they are not guaranteed. The implementation of Amboss’ AI technology, Rails strengthened their Lighting Network with more dependable transactions and larger payment volumes.

“Rails is a transformative force for the Lightning Network,” said the CEO and Co-Founder of Amboss Jesse Shrader. “It’s not just about yield—it’s about enabling businesses to strengthen the network while earning on their Bitcoin. This is a critical step in Bitcoin’s evolution as a global medium of exchange.”

The service offers two options: 

• Rails LP is designed for high net worth individuals, custodians, and companies with Bitcoin treasuries, requiring a minimum commitment of 1 BTC for one year. 
• Liquidity subscriptions are designed for businesses that receive Bitcoin payments, with fees starting at 0.5%.

Amboss partnered with CoinCorner and Flux (a joint venture between Axiom and CoinCorner), to bring Rails to the market. CoinCorner has incorporated it into both its exchange platform and daily payment services in the Isle of Man. Flux is jointly focused on advancing the Lightning Network’s presence in global payments. Their participation highlights growing industry trust in Rails as a tool to scale Bitcoin effectively. 

“Rails offers a practical way for businesses like ours to participate in the Lightning Network’s growth,” said the CFO of CoinCorner David Boylan. “We’ve been using the Lightning Network for years, and Rails provides a structured approach to engaging with its economy, particularly through liquidity leasing and payment routing. This aligns with our goal of making Bitcoin more accessible and practical for everyday use.”

This post Amboss Launches Rails, a Self-Custodial Bitcoin Yield Service first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

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Michael Saylor Presents The 21 Ways to Wealth at Bitcoin 2025

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy, took the stage at Bitcoin 2025 delivering a keynote titled “21 Ways to Wealth.” He stated: “This speech is for you. I’ve traveled the world and told countries, institutional investors, and even the disembodied spirits of our children’s children why they need Bitcoin. This is for every individual, every family, every small business. It’s for everybody.”  

He began with clarity. “The first way to wealth is clarity,” he said. “Clarity comes the moment you realize Bitcoin is capital—perfected capital, programmable capital, incorruptible capital.” For Saylor, every thoughtful individual on Earth will ultimately seek such pristine capital, and every AI system will prefer it as well. 

The second path is conviction. Bitcoin, he said, will appreciate faster than every other asset, because it’s engineered for performance. “It’s going to grow faster than real estate or collectibles. It is the most efficient store of value in human history.”

The third way is courage. “If you’re going to get rich on Bitcoin, you need courage,” he warned. “Wealth favors those who embrace intelligent monetary risk. Some people will get left behind. Others will juggle it. But the bold will feed the fire—sell your bonds, buy Bitcoin. An extraordinary explosion of value is coming.”

Fourth comes cooperation. “You are more powerful if you have the full support of your family. Your children have time and potential. The secret is transferring capital into their hands. Families that move in unity are unstoppable.”

The fifth is capability. “Master AI,” he said. “In 2025, everything you can imagine is at your fingertips—wisdom, analysis, creativity. Ask AI, argue with it, use it. You can become a super genius. Don’t put your ego first—put your interests first. Your family will thank you.”

Saylor’s sixth way to wealth is composition: construct legal entities that scale your strategy and protect your assets. “Ask the AI and figure it out. You can work hard, or you can work smart. This year, everyone should be operating like the most sophisticated millionaire family office.”

The seventh is citizenship. Choose your economic nexus carefully—“domicile where sovereignty respects your freedom,” he said. “This isn’t just about this year—it’s about this century.”

Eighth is civility. “Respect the natural power structures of the world. Respect the force of nature,” he explained. “If you want to generate wealth in the Bitcoin universe, don’t fight unnecessarily. Find common ground. Inflation and distraction are your enemies.”

Ninth is corporation. “A well-structured corporation is the most powerful wealth engine on Earth. Families are powerful. Partnerships are even more powerful. But corporations can scale globally. What is your vehicle? What is your path?”

The tenth way is focus. “Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should,” he warned. “If you invest in Bitcoin, there’s a 90% chance it will succeed over five years. Don’t confuse ambition with accomplishment. Come up with a strategy—and stick to it.”

The eleventh is equity. “Share your opportunities with investors who will share your risk,” he said, pointing to MicroStrategy’s own rise from $10 million to a $5 billion market cap by aligning with equity partners who believed in the Bitcoin mission.

The twelfth is credit. “There are people in the world who are afraid of the future—they want small yield, certainty. Offer that. Give creditors security in return for capital. Convert their fear into fuel and turn risk into yield by investing in Bitcoin.”

The thirteenth is compliance. “Create the best company you can within the rules of your market. Learn the rules of the road. If you know them, you can drive faster. You can scale legally and sustainably.”

The fourteenth way is capitalization. “Velocity compounds wealth,” Saylor said. “Raise and reinvest capital as fast and as often as you can. The faster your money moves into productive Bitcoin strategies, the more it multiplies.”

Fifteenth is communication. “Speak with candor. Act with transparency. And repeat your message often,” he urged. “Creating wealth with Bitcoin is simple—but only if people understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

Sixteenth is commitment. “Don’t allow yourself to be distracted,” he said. “Don’t chase your own ideas. Don’t feed the trolls. Stay committed to Bitcoin. It’s the greatest idea in the world. The world probably doesn’t care what you think—but it will care when you win.”

The Seventeenth way is competence. “You’re not competing with noise—you’re competing with someone who is laser-focused, who executes flawlessly,” he said. “You must deliver consistent, precise, and reliable performance. That’s how you win.”

The Eighteenth is adaptation. “Circumstances change. Every structure you trust today will eventually fail. A wise person is prepared to abandon their baggage and adjust plans when needed. Rigidity is ruin.”

Nineteenth is evolution. “Build on your core strengths. You don’t need to start over—you need to level up. Leverage what you already do best, and expand it through Bitcoin and advanced technologies.”

Twentieth is advocacy. “Inspire others to walk the Bitcoin path,” he said. “Become an evangelist for economic freedom. Show others what this revolution really means. Show them the way.”

Finally, the twenty-first way is generosity. “When you’re successful—and you will be successful—spread happiness. Share security. Deliver hope. That light inside you will shine. And others will be drawn to it.” 

As he ended, Saylor smiled and quoted the very origin of it all: 

“It might make sense to get some, in case it catches on.” – Satoshi.

In Michael Saylor’s worldview, Bitcoin is not a get-rich-quick scheme—it’s the ultimate long-term play. It is the foundation of generational wealth, the engine of personal and institutional freedom, and the tool for those bold enough to lead humanity into a more sovereign, secure future. 

You can watch the full panel discussion and the rest of the Bitcoin 2025 Conference Day 3 below: 

This post Michael Saylor Presents The 21 Ways to Wealth at Bitcoin 2025 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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The Debt Train Has No Brakes: Lyn Alden Makes the Case for BTC at Bitcoin 2025

“Nothing stops this train,” Lyn Alden initially stated at Bitcoin 2025, walking the audience through a data-rich presentation that made one thing clear: the U.S. fiscal system is out of control—and Bitcoin is more necessary than ever. 

Her first chart, sourced from the Federal Reserve’s FRED database, displayed a stark decoupling: the unemployment rate is down, yet the fiscal deficit has surged past 7% of GDP. “This started around 2017, went into overdrive during the pandemic, and hasn’t corrected,” Alden said. “That’s not normal. We’re in a new era.” 

She didn’t mince words. “Nothing stops this train because there are no brakes attached to it anymore. The brakes are heavily impaired.

Why should Bitcoiners care? Because, as Alden explained, “it matters for asset prices—especially anything scarce.” She displayed a gold vs. real rates chart that showed gold soaring as real interest rates plunged. “Five years ago, most would have said Bitcoin couldn’t thrive in a high-rate environment. Yet here we are—Bitcoin over $100K, gold at new highs, and banks breaking under pressure.”

Next came what she called “The Turning Point”—a side-by-side showing how public debt growth overtook private sector debt post-2008, flipping a decades-long norm. “This is inflationary, persistent, and it means the Fed can’t slow things down anymore.” 

Another chart revealed why rising interest rates are now accelerating the deficit. “They’ve lost their brakes. Raising rates just makes the federal interest bill explode faster than it slows bank lending.”

Alden called it a ponzi: “The system is built on constant growth. Like a shark, it dies if it stops swimming.”

Her slide showed a relentless rise in total debt versus base money—except for a jolt in 2008, and again after 2020. “This isn’t going backward. Ever.” 

So why Bitcoin? “Because it’s the opposite. Scarce, decentralized, and mathematically capped,” Alden concluded. “There are two reasons nothing stops this train: math and human nature. Bitcoin is the mirror of this system—and the best protection from it.” 

You can watch the full panel discussion and the rest of the Bitcoin 2025 Conference Day 3 below:

This post The Debt Train Has No Brakes: Lyn Alden Makes the Case for BTC at Bitcoin 2025 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More