BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $91,200
Market Capitalization: $1.82T
Hash Rate (90 days): 1,076.9 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 13,699,193
Network Fees (economy): 1 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 59.11%

What do these numbers mean?

After a slow end to 2025, bitcoin has picked up. Volumes are higher, price is climbing again, and derivatives markets have turned bullish. ETF inflows brought in roughly $800 million in the first days of January, and futures open interest on Deribit rose about 10% as both retail and bitcoin-native demand returned.

The more interesting signal is in the basis trade. The spread between spot and futures has compressed from double digits to 3-4%, which means institutional capital is now arbitraging away the easy money that once attracted tourists. The cash-and-carry trade that defined 2024's ETF-driven rally has matured into something more efficient — and more competitive.

Meanwhile, adoption pressure is building from unexpected directions. Rumble and Tether launched a bitcoin wallet aimed at creators who want to bypass payment-processor gatekeepers. Theo Von told his 6 million followers he now takes income in bitcoin. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang stated plainly that "the value of bitcoin is now established."

Fidelity Digital Assets, in its 2026 outlook, called bitcoin a "long-term strategic asset in diversified portfolios." Each of these represents a different vector – infrastructure, culture, validation, and institutional endorsement – converging on the same conclusion.

MSCI keeps bitcoin treasury companies in global indexes, Strategy survives exclusion threat

Global index provider MSCI concluded its review of digital asset treasury companies and decided against excluding firms like Strategy from its flagship indexes. The decision preserves billions in passive capital flows and ends months of uncertainty over whether bitcoin-heavy firms would be classified as investment funds rather than operating companies.

Bitcoin treasury model validated by traditional finance

MSCI's reversal demonstrates that bitcoin adoption by corporate treasuries is becoming too significant to ignore or exclude from mainstream financial infrastructure. The decision removes a structural market risk and signals that bitcoin held on balance sheets is viewed as a legitimate financial strategy.

Morgan Stanley files for spot bitcoin ETF, first major U.S. bank to issue bitcoin product directly

Morgan Stanley filed with the SEC to launch a spot bitcoin ETF. It’s the first time a major U.S. bank has sought approval to issue an ETF tied directly to bitcoin rather than just distributing third-party products. The proposed Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust would hold bitcoin directly and track its price net of fees, integrating the product into client portfolios while retaining management fees.

Even staid old banks are responding to demand

Morgan Stanley is transforming from a distributor to an issuer. This means banks are spending time and money to evolve their business models in response to client demand for bitcoin. With spot bitcoin ETFs managing billions and becoming some of the fastest-growing products in the industry, even legacy Wall Street institutions recognize they must provide bitcoin access to remain competitive.

Jack Dorsey's BitChat sees mass adoption in Uganda ahead of elections

Ugandans downloaded BitChat en masse ahead of next week's presidential elections after opposition leader Bobi Wine urged citizens to use it to maintain communication if the government cuts internet access. It has been installed by hundreds of thousands of people in recent days, which is about 1% of Uganda's population. The population learned its lesson in 2021 when authorities imposed a four-day nationwide internet blackout in the run up to the election.

Bitcoin-inspired mesh networks resist authoritarian control

BitChat's Bluetooth-powered mesh networking allows users to communicate peer-to-peer without traditional internet infrastructure or central servers, making it resistant to government shutdowns. The app previously helped topple Nepal's government during Gen Z protests and supported demonstrations in Indonesia, proving that bitcoin-aligned, decentralized communication tools increasingly threaten authoritarian control over information flows.

Florida revives bitcoin reserve legislation

Florida lawmakers filed House Bill 1039 to establish a Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve Fund that would allow the state's chief financial officer to invest public funds in bitcoin and other digital assets. The bill limits eligible assets to those maintaining at least $500 billion in market capitalization over 24 months, effectively restricting purchases to bitcoin, and includes requirements for independent audits and advisory committee guidance.

State-level bitcoin reserves gain momentum as fiscal strategy

Florida's renewed push follows New Hampshire becoming the first state to pass strategic bitcoin reserve legislation and Texas approving bitcoin ETF purchases in 2025. The narrowed focus on bitcoin rather than broader digital assets reflects growing bipartisan recognition that bitcoin functions as a reserve asset rather than speculative trade, with states positioning themselves to hedge against currency debasement outside federal control.

Bhutan expands bitcoin mining operations with new 500-megawatt facility

Bitdeer launched its second-largest bitcoin mining data center at Jigmeling in Sarpang on Tuesday, adding a 500-megawatt facility to Bhutan's growing bitcoin mining sector. The project began phased operations this week and is set to reach full-scale operations by 2027, bringing Bhutan's total mining capacity to 600 megawatts powered entirely by renewable hydroelectric energy from Himalayan glacier-fed rivers.

Mining by sovereigns = recognition of bitcoin as digital gold

Bhutan now holds over 11,400 bitcoins worth approximately $1.4 billion, which is equivalent to 40% of the country's GDP. That makes the tiny nation of Bhutan one of the largest government holders of bitcoin globally. The Himalayan kingdom uses bitcoin revenues to finance the salaries of its civil servants, pay for healthcare, and support environmental programs.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Tether purchased 8,888 bitcoins in Q4 2025 worth $778 million, bringing total holdings to over 96,000 coins valued at $8.4 billion. This makes it the fifth-largest bitcoin wallet globally.

VanEck projected bitcoin could reach $2.9 million by 2050, assuming it captures 5-10% of global trade and comprises 2.5% of central bank reserves.

The Polish bitcoin community crowdfunded 560 copies of "The Bitcoin Standard" for every member of parliament to educate lawmakers on the technology they are regulating.

Wealthy Chinese investors are rethinking the tradeoffs between luxury real estate and bitcoin as stores of value, comparing Shenzhen Bay properties worth $8-9 million to bitcoin for superior liquidity and portability.

Boltz integrated non-custodial atomic swaps into Breez, BTCPay Server, and Aqua wallets, enabling trustless transfers between bitcoin layers without KYC.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

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

Bitcoin thrives on uncertainty

Picasso revolutionized art by treating complexity as subject matter. His paintings absorbed ambiguity and reflected it back to the viewer, making uncertainty itself the subject of the work.

Jordi Visser explores this shift in his essay The Picasso Problem. His argument is that, for decades, investors competed to reduce uncertainty through superior analysis, using better models, better data, and better interpretation to convert ambiguity into confidence. That game is ending. Artificial intelligence gives everyone access to sophisticated analysis, which means analytical edge stops conferring advantage. The new challenge is holding assets that remain valuable when uncertainty cannot be resolved. Bitcoin is the clearest example of such an asset, and understanding why requires seeing it through Visser's framework.

Artificial intelligence obliterates this advantage. When every investor has access to AI that can analyze millions of data points, process earnings calls instantaneously, and generate sophisticated models in seconds, analytical superiority disappears. The game changes from resolving uncertainty to managing it.

Bitcoin's entire value proposition is fixed supply and immutable rules. Twenty-one million coins will ever exist, issuance follows a predetermined schedule, and no central authority can alter these parameters. This simplicity matters for the Visser thesis because bitcoin offers no hidden information for analysis to uncover. There is no informational edge to commoditize.

In his 2025 Stone Ridge investor letter, Ross Stevens calls bitcoin "money dictators cannot stop." Monetary stability is a luxury most humans do not have. Stevens notes that 87% of people alive today were born into a monetary system without a stable reserve currency. Venezuelans fleeing hyperinflation, Iranians locked out of payment networks, and Ugandans preparing for internet blackouts need money that operates outside institutional control.

Bitcoin has no headquarters to shut down, no CEO to arrest, no jurisdiction to regulate. These properties frustrate traditional financial analysis because there is no organizational structure to evaluate (or influence).

The Visser and Stevens theses converge on the same underlying property. In wealthy markets, bitcoin's value comes from its immunity to the analytical commoditization that AI accelerates – sophisticated investors cannot gain edge through better models because there is nothing to model. In emerging markets, bitcoin's value comes from its immunity to political capture – authorities cannot seize or freeze assets they cannot locate or control.

As AI makes traditional analysis ubiquitous, edge in traditional assets disappears. As political instability spreads, demand for non-sovereign money grows. Bitcoin serves both needs.

COIN CHECK

Why is Morgan Stanley issuing its own spot bitcoin ETF structurally important?

A. It lowers fees industry-wide
B. It bypasses SEC oversight
C. It moves banks from distributors to balance-sheet participants
D. It increases retail leverage

Check your answer at the end of the page.

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ANSWER

Answer: C.
Becoming an issuer forces banks to integrate bitcoin into core product infrastructure rather than treating it as a third-party asset.

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