Ten31 Timestamp 906,235

It was another week of equity market all-time highs as politicians joined hands across the aisle – after some pro forma last-minute grandstanding and horse-trading – to pass the long-awaited GENIUS Act, which will provide a new regulatory framework for stablecoin issuance in the United States. It will take the market some time to sort out the ultimate winners and losers of this maneuver, but we feel fairly confident the main near- and long-term beneficiary will be the Treasury Department. The thunderous reception for the new Treasury bill absorption stablecoin framework might have obscured some important headlines elsewhere, including a notable signpost from Kevin Warsh (the potential frontrunner to replace Too Late Powell at the Federal Reserve), who called for “a new Treasury-Fed accord” to creatively manage the federal government’s bloated debt burden while supporting an aggressive economic growth agenda. Whether Warsh proves to be a savant or just a sycophant flattering the President’s priors, all the road markers seem to point to a more accommodative, expansionary stance from all the key players setting policy, and we continue to view that as a bullish setup for hard assets in the coming 12-24 months, regardless of the timeline of Powell’s ultimate departure from the (newly renovated) Eccles Building. Bitcoin quietly continued to confirm this view on the week, breaking the $120,000 level for the first time and ultimately reaching just over $123,000 as ETF inflows continued a remarkable multi-month run and CNBC hosts casually threw out $500,000+ price targets without anyone batting an eye.

Portfolio Company Spotlight

Strike is an emerging fintech and payments innovator leveraging bitcoin and the lightning network to allow consumers and merchants around the world to accumulate bitcoin while sending and receiving payments instantly and cheaply in a wide variety of settings. Strike's offerings include a consumer app – now available in nearly 100 countries including the EU – for bitcoin purchases, bitcoin-backed lending, P2P payments, global remittances, and more. Strike also offers a suite of APIs for merchants and enterprises to easily benefit from lightning’s low cost, near-instant settlement. The company has announced a variety of exciting new features over the past year and continues to have one of the most robust pipelines of upcoming launches in the bitcoin ecosystem.

As the world’s largest investor focused entirely on bitcoin, Ten31 has deployed $200 million across several funds into more than 30 of the most promising and innovative companies in the ecosystem, and we expect 2025 to be the best year yet for both bitcoin and our portfolio. Visit ten31.xyz/invest to learn more and get in touch to discuss participating.

Selected Portfolio News

Strike rolled out Virtual USD accounts in over 60 countries:

Strike also announced borrowers can now open up to five separate loans:

Media

The Ten31 team recorded the latest episode of the Bitcoin Alpha podcast, digging into the latest in macro and institutional tailwinds for bitcoin.

AnchorWatch Co-Founder and COO Becca Rubenfeld appeared on the Build with Bitcoin podcast to discuss bitcoin insurance and AnchorWatch’s unique product offerings.

Market Updates

After months of S-tier cyberbullying of Jerome Powell, President Trump and his entourage began officially floating the idea of firing the beleaguered Fed Chair for cause this week.

Trump reportedly showed a draft letter to do just that to House Republicans early in the week, prompting a Congresswoman to declare the firing to be “imminent.”

The President publicly downplayed this possibility, suggesting that it’s highly unlikely…“unless he has to leave for fraud.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that a search for Powell’s replacement is already underway, though also reiterated that the administration is not planning to fire the Fed Chair. As always, it’s important not to believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

The latest CPI print for June came in at 2.7% Y/Y, in line with expectations, while the PPI was slightly below consensus and flat sequentially.

It should go without saying at this point, but Trump used these reports as yet another opportunity to call for lower benchmark interest rates, suggesting the Fed Funds Rate should come down by three points.

As the conflict between the Executive Branch and the central bank continues to escalate, former Fed official Kevin Warsh – a frontrunner for heir to the Paper Throne – took to CNBC for an extended interview calling for “regime change” at the Fed.

While Warsh paid lip service to the idea of maintaining central bank independence (because, as we all know, an independent cabal of lawyers and bankers setting the most important price in the world is a pillar of a classical democratic republic), he also touted a “new Fed-Treasury accord” to better coordinate monetary and fiscal policy, similar to the relationship that prevailed in the high-debt post-WWII era.

As we’ve periodically noted in this newsletter, this kind of coordination will likely continue to be a growing point of focus for government officials globally, as longer-duration bond yields have remained stubbornly high, with the US 30-year breaking the 5% level once again this week and the UK 30-year gilt reaching nearly a 30-year high.

Elsewhere, the US announced a new trade deal with Indonesia. Like the recent deal with Vietnam, the Indonesia agreement also includes language on “trans-shipment” penalties to avoid country of origin laundering as part of what increasingly looks like a bid to isolate the Chinese trade sphere.

Domestically, the latest Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey showed a strong expansion vs consensus expectations for a slight contractionary reading; that said, the index still sits pretty notably below its long-term trend.

Bitcoin broke a new all-time high once again this week, briefly surpassing $123,000 before a small pullback. Importantly, bitcoin’s “realized market cap,” which measures the total value of all bitcoin at the price at which they last transacted, broke $1 trillion for the first time this week, suggesting continued growth in the market’s validation of bitcoin as a trillion-dollar+ asset.

Spot bitcoin ETFs took in another $2.4 billion on the week, extending an impressive streak of inflows. The complex has now only seen a single net outflow day going back to June 6th.

Meanwhile, CNBC anchors and guests are now regularly throwing out bitcoin price targets that would have seemed absurd to most mainstream observers just a few years ago, with one analyst pointing to Michael Saylor’s $13 million long-term price target as a reasonable framework while echoing the Bitcoin Twitter talking point that “bitcoin is just a reflection of fiat currencies losing their value.”

Regulatory Update

After some drama and Presidential cajoling, Congress’s self-declared “Crypto Week” ended successfully for a few key bills. Most notably, despite initially failing to clear some procedural hurdles, the GENIUS Act governing stablecoins in the US was ultimately passed with strong bipartisan support.

President Trump reiterated his promise to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and scheduled a dedicated press conference to sign off on the legislation.

The House also passed the CLARITY Act, which notably includes important language on money transmitter classifications under the Bank Secrecy Act. The legislation will now move to the Senate.

A newly published FOIA request suggested that the US Marshals Service currently only manages ~30,000 bitcoin, about 15% of the total bitcoin the US is believed to control from criminal seizures. It’s unclear whether other departments with unidentified wallets may control other bitcoin balances not listed here.

The Trump administration’s press secretary told Bitcoin Magazine journalist Frank Corva that President Trump is in favor of a de minimis capital gains tax exemption for small bitcoin transactions.

After each agency individually clarified that banks can engage in digital asset custody activities over the past few months, the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and OCC – collectively the three main banking regulators in the US – issued a joint statement on guidance for such custody.

The Financial Times reported that the Trump administration is considering an executive order to broaden 401k plans’ access to bitcoin, gold, and private alternative investment funds.

Noteworthy

Cantor Fitzgerald – former firm of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and sponsor of bitcoin treasury company Twenty One Capital’s SPAC transaction – announced a new bitcoin treasury SPAC seeded with over 30,000 bitcoin and led by early bitcoin pioneer Adam Back.

TechCrunch ran a detailed feature on Jack Dorsey’s $10 million “And Other Stuff” initiative, which will look to fund experimental software leveraging the Nostr protocol. The article specifically highlights the Cashu protocol, which was developed by Ten31 open source grantee Calle.

Travel

• Bitcoin Park Imagine IF Summit, Sep 19-20
• Portfolio Company Retreat, early October