BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $70,760
Market Capitalization: $1.42T
Hash Rate (90 days): 999.7 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 13,528,247
Network Fees (economy): 1 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 58.93%

What do these numbers mean?

The Fed held rates steady this week as war continues in Iran. Geopolitical tensions are rattling traditional markets, and institutions continue to mis-categorize bitcoin as a "risk asset" — selling when uncertainty spikes. (Gold sold off this week too, so there you go.) The infrastructure and regulatory changes coming to bitcoin prove that entrepreneurs and even some political actors are preparing for a future where it plays a key role in the global economy.

Meanwhile, bitcoin continues to transition from its principle role as a store of value to a viable medium of exchange. Square is auto-enabling bitcoin payments for all eligible sellers on March 30th. Millions of merchants will then be able to accept bitcoin with no opt-in required and zero friction.

Additionally, the CFTC issued a no-action letter confirming self-custodial wallet developers don't need to register as brokers — the first time the agency has formally drawn that line. The SEC and CFTC jointly released 68 pages of guidance declaring that most digital assets are not securities. SEC Chair Atkins put it plainly: "We're not the 'securities and everything commission' anymore."

“Bitcoin infrastructure is being built at wartime speed,” wrote Marty Bent this week. He’s right:

• Boltz shipped non-custodial Lightning-to-USDT swaps.

• Strike's business line of credit went live in 43 states.

• Breez added passkey login for self-custodial wallets.

• Ark Labs plugged bitcoin directly into U.S. banking rails.

The price chart tells one story, but the builders tell another. A parallel financial architecture is being constructed, and it doesn't need permission from the toxic macro environment. When institutional capital finally stops treating bitcoin like a tech stock and starts treating it like what it is — sovereign, scarce, and neutral — the rails will already be laid.

If you know where to look, things have never been more bullish.

Bitcoin Policy Institute to fight Basel's "toxic" 1,250% risk weighting of bitcoin

The Bitcoin Policy Institute announced it will submit a public comment to the Federal Reserve to challenge bitcoin's treatment under the Basel framework, which imposes a 1,250% risk weighting — harsher than virtually every other asset class. The Fed is set to issue proposals on how U.S. banks should implement the Basel Committee's risk-weighting guidance in coming weeks.

Punitive, dishonest shows bankers are scared.

Under current rules, banks must back any bitcoin on their balance sheet at a 1:1 ratio with approved collateral, while cash, gold, and government debt carry a 0% risk weight. This framework makes it nearly impossible for banks to serve bitcoin companies and individuals. BPI managing director Conner Brown called it a "category error." If the Fed gets this right, it could unlock an entirely new channel of institutional capital.

Metaplanet raises $255 million to accelerate bitcoin accumulation

Japanese bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet raised ¥40.8 billion ($255 million) from global institutional investors, part of a structure that could unlock up to $531 million in total capital for bitcoin purchases. The company introduced a novel warrant mechanism tied to net asset value that ensures any new share issuance increases bitcoin holdings per share.

Use of Saylor’s playbook spreads

Metaplanet now holds 35,102 bitcoins and is the world's fourth-largest corporate bitcoin treasury company, pushing toward a long-term goal of 210,000.

Fed chair nominee Warsh: The Fed helped create fiscal dominance

Kevin Warsh, President Trump's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, argues the Fed has drifted far beyond its mandate, becoming "a general-purpose agency of government." In a speech at the IMF, Warsh said the Fed's post-2008 crisis interventions were never fully reversed, creating a nearly $7 trillion balance sheet that subsidized fiscal expansion and made the central bank the largest buyer of U.S. Treasury debt.

The case for a narrow central bank (and for bitcoin)

Warsh's diagnosis is damning: the institution designed to restrain fiscal excess has instead enabled it. Independence became a rhetorical shield for mission creep into climate policy, social justice, and permanent market intervention.

If confirmed, Warsh wants a narrow Fed focused solely on monetary stability. Whether or not he succeeds, his public acknowledgment of what bitcoiners have said for years — that the system is structurally broken — is remarkable. The best hedge against a central bank that cannot restrain itself remains the one asset it cannot print.

Galaxy Research: Bitcoin is rising to the challenge of quantum readiness

Galaxy Digital released a comprehensive report detailing the bitcoin developer community's response to quantum computing threats. The report documents substantial work, including BIP 360 (Pay-to-Merkle-Root), the Hourglass proposal for managing vulnerable legacy outputs, SPHINCS+ hash-based signatures, and Tadge Dryja's commit/reveal emergency backstop — all of which are actively being developed and reviewed.

The risk is real, recognized, and being addressed

The quantum debate has generated more heat than light on social media, with some claiming developers are ignoring the threat. Galaxy's research shows the opposite: BIP 360 has received more comments than any other BIP in history, multiple conferences have been dedicated to the topic, and the pace of proposals has accelerated meaningfully since late 2025. As the report concludes, every honest participant in the network has a direct financial interest in its continued security. Bitcoin's decentralized governance is slow by design. That deliberateness is a feature, not a bug.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Jack Mallers, now leading both Strike and Twenty One Capital (NYSE: XXI), which holds the third-largest public corporate bitcoin holding globally, has been confirmed as a speaker at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas on April 27–29.

Strategy (MSTR) is closing in on BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust, with 761,000 bitcoins versus IBIT's 781,000, after acquiring 40,332 coins in the first two weeks of March alone.

Fold reported an 8% surge in Q4 revenue to $9 million and launched its Visa and Stripe-powered Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, with CEO Will Reeves predicting bitcoin rewards will overtake airline miles as the preferred consumer reward in the U.S.

Strive added 317 bitcoins to its balance sheet, valued at approximately $23 million, bringing total holdings to 13,628 and placing the company ahead of Tesla among corporate bitcoin holders.

El Salvador, now the safest country in the Western Hemisphere for four consecutive years, continues to attract capital with 0% tax on foreign income, 0% capital gains on bitcoin, and 90-minute direct flights from Miami under $200.

“Bitcoin ETFs accumulated roughly $60 billion in net flows from their launch in January 2024 through October 2025. Since October 2025, prices are down 50%, but we've seen less than $10 billion in outflows from ETFs,” says Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

Learn one key idea about bitcoin each week. This week:

If AI destroys every moat, where does capital go?

Chamath Palihapitiya published a provocative thought exercise this week asking a question that should keep every equity investor up at night: what happens to stock valuations if artificial intelligence makes every competitive advantage temporary?

His argument is straightforward. The entire architecture of capital markets rests on the assumption that competitive advantages compound over time. Moats persist. Brands endure. Network effects are so powerful that they don’t even need to be defended once they’ve taken hold. But if AI lowers the cost of disruption so dramatically that no company can credibly project its cash flows beyond five years, then markets would stop paying for what a business might earn in year seven — because year seven becomes unknowable.

The math is brutal. If a business faces a 20% annual probability of being rendered obsolete by AI, its expected lifespan is roughly five years, warranting a valuation of about 4x free cash flow. The S&P 500 currently trades at 22x earnings. The gap between where markets are priced and where this framework says they should be is enormous.

Palihapitiya isn't predicting a crash. He's describing a structural repricing where capital rotates away from fragile equities and toward assets with no disruption risk — things with inelastic demand, physical defensibility, and fixed supply.

As Michael Saylor responded:

In a world where the future value of every company becomes unknowable, the value of an asset whose monetary policy is permanently knowable goes up. That asset is bitcoin.

COIN CHECK

If AI makes competitive advantages temporary and limits companies’ predictable cash flows to about five years, what is the most likely impact on capital allocation?

A. Capital concentrates further into high-growth tech equities due to faster innovation.
B. Capital shifts toward assets with durable properties like scarcity and low disruption risk.
C. Capital moves primarily into long-duration bonds for stability.
D. Capital exits markets entirely and holds cash.

Check your answer at the end of the page.

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ANSWER

Answer: B. Capital flows toward assets that don’t depend on fragile, time-limited competitive advantages.

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