Ten31 Timestamp 885,854
After months of sideways chop in a narrow range, markets finally broke to the downside, with bearish sentiment in both equities and bitcoin ratcheting up to multi-year peaks (despite essentially all major asset classes still situated within spitting distance of all-time highs). A slew of negative macro updates drove much of the sentiment unwind, capped off late in the week by President Trump’s reiteration that tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada will proceed as planned starting next week. Bitcoin busted through the $90,000 level for the first time in several months and fell as far as $79,000 before recovering to the mid $80,000 range to close the week, a pullback that so far looks like a mid-cycle drawdown typical of prior bull runs. All the same, the fundamental backdrop in many ways continued to improve this week, with BlackRock adding bitcoin to one of its model portfolios for the first time, several state bitcoin bills achieving significant milestones, and M2 growth sustaining its months-long trend of acceleration. If the Trump administration continues to pull forward macro pain in the service of longer term structural realignments, we’d expect the near term to remain bumpy for both bitcoin and broader markets, but from our seat, all the key tailwinds that benefited bitcoin over the past few months still seem to be very much in play.
Portfolio Company Spotlight
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As the world’s largest investor focused entirely on bitcoin, Ten31 has deployed nearly $150 million across two 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.vc/funds to learn more and get in touch to discuss participating.
Selected Portfolio News
A week after completing its public listing, Fold added 10 bitcoin to its balance sheet:
Media
Ten31 Managing Partner Marty Bent appeared on the Galaxy Brains podcast to discuss the investment landscape in the bitcoin ecosystem.
Unchained collaborated with the Bitcoin Policy Institute on a report covering the first 30 days of bitcoin policy under the Trump administration.
The OpenSecret (fka Mutiny Wallet) team joined Marty Bent on TFTC to discuss the tools the company is building to enable greater privacy in AI applications.
Debifi Founder Max Keidun joined the Bitcoin for Millennials show to dig into bitcoin-collateralized lending and more.
River published a comprehensive new report on the current state of bitcoin adoption.
Market Updates
Following months of consternation about tariff policy, fiscal deficits, and weakening growth metrics, markets finally started to give way more notably, as key equity indices dropped all week and the S&P500 officially flipped negative on the year (though it caught a bid Friday afternoon following a friendly meeting at the White House).
Despite major indices being down only 3-5% from all-time highs, the stock market “Fear / Greed Index” hit its lowest level in a year on Friday.
Incremental macro data softened on the margin, as Citi’s economic surprise index retrenched to the lows of last September, while the latest Consumer Confidence Index came in well below expectations with the largest M/M decline since 2021.
At the same time, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate tanked to a -1.5% projection for the first quarter of the year, down from a +2.3% estimate just a week ago (though this appears to have been driven primarily by an explosion in net imports ahead of upcoming tariffs).
To cap off the week of poor macro updates, US pending home sales for last month clocked in at a record low (including both the trough of the 2008 housing bust and spring 2020).
President Trump added more fuel to the fire during the week by reiterating that tariffs on Mexico and Canada will proceed as planned starting next week and announcing an additional 10% duty to be imposed on China.
The one benign data point on the week was the latest PCE reading (the Fed’s preferred price inflation gauge), which printed in line with expectations at +2.6% Y/Y.
Amid the equity market selloff and weaker headlines, US Treasuries caught a clear bid, with the 10-year Treasury yield revisiting multi-month lows. The benchmark yield has now retraced more than 50bps in just the last month.
The latest 2-year and 5-year Treasury auctions were also very solid, continuing a theme of stronger demand at shorter durations.
The moves are likely a welcome sign to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has frequently listed lower yields as a priority in recent months and who mentioned this week that the spending cuts being made by DOGE are partially an attempt to “increase the desirability” of US Treasuries.
Bessent also made the noteworthy comment this week that the “private sector has been in a recession” for some time, a point emphasized by some less mainstream commentators over the past several years.
In the background, US M2 money supply has continued ticking higher, with the key liquidity metric growing at its fastest rate in nearly three years in January.
Meanwhile, bitcoin was not immune to the broad market pressure and finally caught its first major drawdown of this recent bull market cycle, declining from the mid $90,000 range to as low as $79,000 before ending the week around $85,000.
The selloff was accompanied by significant pressure from spot bitcoin ETFs, which collectively saw outflows north of $3 billion on the week, including a single-day record outflow of more than $1 billion on Tuesday.
That said, BlackRock also added the IBIT bitcoin ETF to one of its model portfolios for the first time, with a 1-2% target allocation.
Regulatory Update
Montana’s House of Representatives rejected a proposed state bitcoin reserve bill, following the lead of a few other state legislatures that reached similar results last week.
Elsewhere, Ohio state representatives introduced a bill to eliminate state capital gains taxes on bitcoin transactions, and Kentucky’s House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill protecting bitcoin self-custody.
Utah Senator Mike Lee introduced the Saving Privacy Act, a bill developed in consultation with the Bitcoin Policy Institute that would, among other measures, repeal the Bank Secrecy Act (responsible for much of the invasive KYC/AML regulation permeating most modern financial services) and strengthen Fourth Amendment protections in financial matters.
Senator Cynthia Lummis led the first meeting of the Congressional Subcommittee on digital assets, which primarily focused on stablecoin regulations and was light on discussion of a strategic bitcoin reserve.
The executive formerly known as Michael Saylor met with both the SEC and various members of Congress this week to discuss his proposed digital assets framework.
Noteworthy
Strive Asset Management submitted a shareholder proposal to GameStop encouraging the company to use its $5 billion cash balance to initiate a bitcoin treasury strategy.
OpenSats published a new report on the latest technical developments in bitcoin privacy.
Several developers published a proposal for “Frostr,” a Nostr private key rotation arrangement powered by FROST which could offer more secure Nostr key management.
Travel
Bitcoin for America hosted by Bitcoin Policy Institute, Mar 11
Austin Bitcoin Takeover, Mar 14
Bitcoin 2025, May 27-29