BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $121,500
Market Capitalization: $2.42T
Hash Rate (90 days): 974.0 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 14,176,365
Network Fees (economy): 2 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 59.37%

What do these numbers mean?

Even Litecoin's founder, Charlie Lee, realizes the truth. When CoinDesk asked him what advice he'd give his younger self, he didn't hesitate: "Buy bitcoin and hold it." Not Litecoin. Not a diversified portfolio. Just bitcoin.

This is the same guy who created one of the oldest altcoins, one that is still in the top 30 after 14 years. Even he wouldn't bet his own wealth on anything but bitcoin long-term.

Meanwhile, institutions are putting money where Lee's mouth is. State Street research reveals institutional portfolio exposure to bitcoin is expected to double from 7% to 16% within three years, with nearly 60% planning to increase allocations over the next year. Polymarket just added bitcoin deposits as the NYSE's parent company ICE eyes a $2 billion investment, potentially valuing the platform at $10 billion. On Polymarket, 83% of traders predict bitcoin will hit $130,000 this year.

From founders of competing projects to Wall Street institutions to prediction markets, everyone is arriving at the same inevitable conclusion. There's bitcoin, and there's everything else. The only question left is how long it takes you to figure that out.

NEWS

Square launches bitcoin payments for merchants, waives fees for first year

Block's Square subsidiary announced integrated bitcoin payments using the Lightning Network, allowing U.S. merchants to accept bitcoin directly with zero processing fees through 2026. The platform also enables automatic conversion of up to 50% of daily card sales into bitcoin, with 142 coins already accumulated through an early pilot program that began in 2024.

Bitcoin becomes seamless for Main Street

By integrating bitcoin into the same dashboard merchants use for inventory and payroll, Square eliminates the technical barriers that have kept small businesses from adopting bitcoin payments. This positions bitcoin as everyday money for commerce, not just an investment asset – exactly what's needed for bitcoin to fulfill its role as a medium of exchange.

Luxembourg becomes first Eurozone nation to add bitcoin to sovereign wealth fund

Luxembourg's Intergenerational Sovereign Wealth Fund allocated 1% of its $730 million portfolio to bitcoin ETFs, becoming the first state-level fund in the Eurozone to invest in bitcoin. Under a revised framework approved in July 2025, the fund is authorized to allocate up to 15% of assets to alternative investments including bitcoin.

Small nation signals bitcoin's legitimacy to European institutions

Luxembourg's bitcoin allocation, though modest, breaks critical psychological barriers for European sovereign wealth funds that have avoided bitcoin despite holding seized coins from criminal cases. When a wealthy, conservative financial center like Luxembourg validates bitcoin as appropriate for intergenerational savings, it implicitly gives permission to other European nations to follow suit.

Gold surges past $4,000 while bitcoin hits all time high as "debasement trade" drives investors to hard assets

This week, gold futures climbed above $4,060 per ounce, while silver reached $48.70 and bitcoin broke $125,000. All three assets hit fresh all-time highs simultaneously as investors flee fiat currencies. Nomura analyst Charlie McElligott noted that developed nations are "pivoting into a 'Run It Hot' fiscal dominance framework, carrying monster deficits in order to try and outgrow debt," with Japan's newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi joining the fiscal stimulus wave.

Bitcoin is the ultimate hedge

While gold and silver rally, only bitcoin outshines the monetary properties of precious metals with perfectly reliable scarcity and the portability and divisibility required for the digital age. As governments worldwide abandon fiscal restraint, bitcoin's fixed supply of 21 million coins offers the only truly scarce asset that can't be debased through discovery of new metal deposits or government mandates, making it the ultimate winner in the debasement trade.

North Dakota to launch state-backed Roughrider Coin stablecoin in 2026

The Bank of North Dakota partnered with Fiserv to launch Roughrider Coin, a dollar-backed stablecoin set to debut in 2026, following Wyoming's Frontier Stable Token launched in August. The stablecoin will be backed one-to-one with U.S. dollars and available to the state's banks and credit unions under the GENIUS Act framework passed in July.

The monetary system fragments as people flee fractional reserve banking

State-issued stablecoins represent an intermediate step in monetary evolution because they operate like narrow banks with full reserves rather than fractional reserve banks that create money through lending. As trust in central bank currency erodes, capital flows to dollar-backed stablecoins, gold, and ultimately to bitcoin as the final settlement layer. This progression reveals what people actually want: verifiable, scarce money that can't be debased – something only bitcoin provides with mathematical certainty.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Bitcoin life insurer Meanwhile raised $82 million led by Bain Capital Crypto and Haun Ventures to expand globally, meeting surging demand for bitcoin-denominated savings and insurance products.

Peru’s largest bank, BCP, launched a regulator-approved pilot letting select clients buy and hold bitcoin and USDC under BitGo custody, the first such offering in the country.

Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian confirmed the company will soon accept bitcoin for home purchases, signaling real estate’s next step toward bitcoin integration after a 14% stock surge.

KindlyMD partnered with Antalpha to issue $250 million in convertible notes, using the proceeds to expand its bitcoin treasury and strengthen corporate financing aligned with long-term bitcoin adoption.

Analysts say gold’s record $4,000 price and silver’s 45-year high signal an overheated metals market, setting the stage for investors to rotate into undervalued bitcoin as the dollar weakens.

Bitdeer ramped up self-mining to offset rig sales, tripling its hashrate to 22.5 EH/s and joining other manufacturers turning their own hardware toward bitcoin production.

Samsung partnered with Coinbase to let 75 million U.S. Galaxy users buy and hold bitcoin directly in Samsung Wallet, marking the largest consumer bitcoin integration to date.

Unchained’s advisory arm merged with Wyoming-chartered Gannett Trust to form Gannett Wealth Advisors, the first bitcoin-native wealth platform combining custody, inheritance, and fiduciary planning under one regulated entity.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

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

Is the Four-Year Cycle Dead?

Since bitcoin's inception, price peaks have occurred roughly every four years, coinciding with the halving schedule. Many traders treat this pattern as gospel, forecasting market tops based solely on calendar dates. But as Arthur Hayes argues in his recent essay, "Long Live the King," applying historical patterns without understanding why they worked is a recipe for being wrong.

According to Hayes, bitcoin's four-year cycles weren't caused by the halving itself. They were caused by global monetary policy cycles that happened to align with bitcoin's maturation schedule.

During the 2009-2013 genesis cycle, coordinated money printing from the Fed and PBOC fueled bitcoin's rise until credit growth decelerated in both countries. The 2013-2017 ICO cycle was driven almost entirely by Chinese yuan credit expansion following a yuan devaluation. The 2017-2021 COVID cycle resulted from unprecedented dollar printing under Trump's stimulus programs.

Each cycle ended when monetary authorities tightened conditions – not when the calendar hit a certain date, or the timechain hit a certain block height.

This cycle is structurally different. Instead of QE, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen drained $2.5 trillion from the Fed's Reverse Repo Program by issuing short-term bills, injecting liquidity without traditional money printing. Her successor Scott Bessent continued this policy until the RRP approached zero.

More importantly, both U.S. and Chinese leaders are signaling looser monetary policy ahead. Trump explicitly calls for lower rates and easier credit. The Fed resumed rate cuts despite inflation above target. China is moving to end deflation after years of credit restraint.

Hayes's thesis is simple: bitcoin rises when fiat credit expands and falls when it contracts. If monetary conditions continue loosening, the bull market continues, four-year cycle be damned.

The calendar doesn't determine bitcoin's dollar-denominated price. Central bankers do. Regardless of its price tag, bitcoin’s value transcends these cycles and promises a strong foundation to build a better world.

COIN CHECK

Which scenario would most likely break the old four-year bitcoin pattern by pushing the cycle longer?

A. The U.S. holds rates high and keeps pulling cash out of markets, while China tightens credit.
B. The U.S. cuts rates and floods short-term cash back into markets, while China stops shrinking credit.
C. Spot-ETF inflows stay flat, miners sell fewer coins after a halving, and policy is otherwise unchanged.
D. The U.S. raises rates but loosens bank rules, while China boosts housing but keeps strict capital controls.

Check your answer at the end of the page.

FROM THE MEME POOL

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ANSWER

(B) The U.S. cuts rates and floods short-term cash back into markets, while China stops shrinking credit.

When the U.S. cuts rates and pushes more short-term cash into markets, funding gets cheaper and plentiful, which loosens financial conditions. Stocks, credit, and “long-duration” assets like bitcoin all breathe easier. If, at the same time, China stops shrinking credit, a major headwind on bitcoin’s price would be removed.

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