BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $68,700
Market Capitalization: $1.37T
Hash Rate (90 days): 994.0 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 13,852,943
Network Fees (economy): 1 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 58.81%

What do these numbers mean?

Your portfolio was built for a different world – a world whose rules have since changed.

For eight decades, the combination of Bretton Woods, the Rules-Based International Order, and the free-trade consensus engineered a specific structural property into financial markets: mean reversion. 

When shocks happened, the Fed cut rates. When correlations broke, central banks restored them. Recovery in financial markets was not natural but rather the result of institutional design.

That is why the 60/40 portfolio worked; that is why “buying the dip” worked. Widespread expectation that equities always go up in price overall over a long enough time horizon was the consequence of a metastructure built after World War II.

That architecture is now being deliberately dismantled. Global trade as a percentage of GDP peaked around 2008 and has been declining since, for the first time since the 1940s. Five structural accelerants are at work simultaneously: the U.S.-China rivalry, supply chain fragility, the energy transition, domestic political pressure from decades of wage stagnation, and the weaponization of finance itself. (The freezing of Russian reserves removed any remaining illusion that global capital flows are politically neutral.)

Portfolio assumptions designed to protect wealth do not work if the environment they were built for is fundamentally different. It is like training for a marathon, only to be told you must climb a mountain. The mindset and preparation you need to succeed are different. Your portfolio now sits in a hyper-politicized, unstable, and multipolar context. The reversion to the mean that many are waiting for has moved.

Private credit market strains signal tightening financial conditions as $3 trillion sector faces first real credit cycle

The roughly $3 trillion private credit market is showing more signs of stress as JPMorgan Chase marks down private credit loans, joining concerns already surfacing at Blue Owl Capital, Apollo Global Management, and Morgan Stanley. The sector, which expanded rapidly after the 2008 financial crisis as banks retreated from riskier lending, now faces higher rates, weaker borrower fundamentals, and a reinforcing cycle where rising energy prices, inflation expectations, and tighter credit conditions converge simultaneously.

Quiet stress, loud signal

The current situation pales in comparison to the scale of the 2008 GFC, but it does not need to be the same size to be significant. Private credit is a tightening mechanism that transmits stress through funding channels into refinancing constraints and ultimately into valuation pressure across the broader economy. When the financial system quietly seizes up, the case for a liquid, 24/7, counterparty-free asset becomes impossible to ignore.

Fannie Mae accepts first bitcoin-backed mortgage product via Better and Coinbase

Fannie Mae will now accept bitcoin-backed mortgages through a new product by Better Home and Finance and Coinbase, allowing homebuyers to pledge bitcoin as collateral for a down payment without selling their holdings. On a $500,000 home, a borrower can pledge $250,000 in bitcoin, receive a $100,000 loan to cover the down payment, and keep full upside exposure while the bitcoin sits in custody for the life of the loan.

Bitcoin becomes balance-sheet infrastructure

The United States government-sponsored mortgage apparatus now treats bitcoin as legitimate collateral — a direct acknowledgment that bitcoin is a real financial asset.

North Carolina lawmakers propose state bitcoin reserve with up to 10% of public funds

North Carolina introduced Senate Bill 327, the North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act, which would allow the State Treasurer to allocate up to 10% of public funds into bitcoin as part of a long-term financial strategy. The bill calls for cold storage with multi-signature authentication, monthly audits, and a Bitcoin Economic Advisory Board, with any liquidation requiring two-thirds approval from both chambers of the General Assembly.

U.S. states need bitcoin

The list keeps growing. Texas, New Hampshire, and Arizona have already enacted laws allowing bitcoin allocations, while more than a dozen additional states have introduced similar legislation. North Carolina's Senate Bill 327 would let its State Treasurer allocate up to 10% of public funds into bitcoin, with cold storage, multi-signature authentication, monthly audits, and a Bitcoin Economic Advisory Board overseeing the program.

Tennessee's HB1695, the Tennessee Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act, mirrors the same architecture: up to 10% of the general fund and revenue fluctuation reserve, capped at 5% annual purchases, bitcoin-only (no other crypto), with offline multi-location custody and biennial public reports that include cryptographic proof of on-chain balances.

State governments are quietly building the institutional architecture for a bitcoin standard, not because politicians suddenly became ideological converts, but because the math on their pension obligations demands it.

Bitcoin Policy Institute brings Coinbase, River, and Block to Capitol Hill for de minimis tax reform as midterms loom

The Bitcoin Policy Institute is meeting on Capitol Hill with Coinbase, River, and Block to push for a de minimis tax exemption that would allow Americans to spend bitcoin without triggering a taxable event on every transaction.

Meanwhile, Stand With Crypto endorsed candidates in six battleground midterm races, with polling showing 64% of bitcoin holders are enthusiastic about supporting pro-bitcoin candidates.

Bitcoin becomes bipartisan?

The de minimis initiative is the most consequential legislative battle for bitcoin adoption in the United States right now. Every cup of coffee purchased with bitcoin currently requires capital gains reporting – a compliance burden that makes everyday use functionally impossible. If this exemption passes, bitcoin stops being classified purely as a speculative asset and starts being recognized as what Satoshi designed it to be: peer-to-peer electronic cash. Combine that with growing bipartisan political support heading into the midterms and we may yet see a bitcoin circular economy take hold in the largest economy on earth.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Sweden-listed H100 Group signed a letter of intent to acquire two Norwegian bitcoin companies, bringing its total holdings to 3,501 bitcoins and positioning it as Europe's second-largest listed bitcoin treasury company.

Australia's $105 billion Hostplus pension fund is exploring offering bitcoin to its nearly two million members through its self-directed investment platform, with a rollout possible as early as next financial year.

Wall Street broker Bernstein reaffirmed a $150,000 year-end bitcoin price target, calling the recent correction a temporary sentiment reset rather than a fundamental breakdown.

Europe's first bitcoin treasury company Capital B acquired 44 bitcoin for €2.7 million, bringing total holdings to 2,888 bitcoins with a year-to-date yield of 0.72%.

SkyBridge managing partner Anthony Scaramucci forecasts bitcoin will enter a new bull cycle in Q4 2026, characterizing the current downturn as a garden-variety correction consistent with bitcoin's four-year cycle.

Strategy acquired 1,031 bitcoins for $76.6 million last week, bringing total corporate holdings to 762,099 purchased for approximately $57.7 billion.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

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

Getting off zero

Chris Kuiper, a CFA and researcher at Fidelity Digital Assets, published a report this week titled "Getting Off Zero: Evaluating Bitcoin in 2026." The central argument is simple: the question is no longer whether bitcoin deserves consideration in a portfolio, but rather whether you can justify having none.

Using historical data across multiple time horizons, Kuiper found that even a modest 1-3% bitcoin allocation to a traditional 60/40 portfolio improved risk-adjusted returns without dramatically increasing maximum drawdown. When his team ran a mean-variance optimization with conservative bitcoin assumptions and optimistic stock assumptions, the portfolio with the highest Sharpe Ratio contained 9.4% bitcoin and zero percent bonds. A zero allocation is not neutral. It is an active bet that bitcoin will not perform – a bet that has been wrong in 11 out of the past 15 years.

This is where Kuiper's institutional math meets a deeper theoretical insight. In 2014, Daniel Krawisz of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute coined the term "hyperbitcoinization" to describe the voluntary transition from an inferior currency to a superior one. Krawisz argued that bitcoin adoption would be driven by economic tailwinds and individual incentives.

That is exactly what Kuiper's data now shows from within the institutional framework itself. The math makes a case more powerful than anarcho-libertarian idealism ever could. Every quarter that an allocator maintains zero exposure, opportunity cost compounds, and the justification for staying at zero gets thinner.

COIN CHECK

On January 16, 2009 — just weeks after mining the genesis block — Satoshi Nakamoto wrote: "It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on." What was the price of bitcoin at the time?

A. $0.01
B. $0.001
C. $1.00
D. $0.00

Check your answer at the end of the page.

FROM THE MEME POOL

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ANSWER

Answer: D. $0.00 — bitcoin had no market price. The first recorded exchange rate was not established until October 5, 2009, when the New Liberty Standard published a rate of $1 = 1,309.03 BTC (roughly $0.00076 per bitcoin), calculated based on the cost of electricity to mine them. Today, it costs large industrial block producers between $35,000 and $60,000.

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