Ten31 Timestamp 896,128
Do not adjust your TV set, what you are seeing is not an error – despite the greatest paradigm shift in international trade in a half-century remaining firmly unresolved, the Federal Reserve holding its benchmark rate near ~20 year highs as it continues to shrink its balance sheet, and ongoing volatility in US Treasuries, bitcoin broke the $100,000 level once again this week and is now just a few points off its all-time high. In an environment this tumultuous, it’s far beyond our pay grade to forecast whether we are, to use the technical term, So BackTM, but we have to say that this kind of price action against the backdrop of many outstanding macro headwinds strikes us as pretty encouraging. Meanwhile, a few more pieces on the trade chessboard began to come into view this week, potentially opening up some clarity around the administration’s long-term objectives for a global monetary reordering that could have very positive long-run implications for bitcoin, a notion that large banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are increasingly validating with their public statements and AUM.
Portfolio Company Spotlight
Satoshi Energy provides market-leading services and analytics for behind-the-meter data center development projects bringing together bitcoin mining operators, high-performance compute projects, and power producers. The company offers plug and play power contracts and project monitoring services, as well as cutting edge tools for sites to manage credit exposure and real-time settlement of invoices. With a large pipeline of projects under development and a growing suite of products and services, Satoshi Energy is pioneering the accelerating convergence of power production and advanced data centers.
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.xyz/invest to learn more and get in touch to discuss participating.
Selected Portfolio News
Strike announced its new lending offering, allowing users to access bitcoin-collateralized loans directly on the platform:
Strike also announced new USDT on/off-ramps in 35 countries:
Fold announced Matt McManus will join the company as COO:
Media
Strike Founder and CEO Jack Mallers appeared on CNBC to discuss the corporate bitcoin treasury playbook.
Satoshi Energy Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Myers joined Ten31 Managing Partner Marty Bent on TFTC for a wide-ranging discussion on bitcoin, AI, and energy.
Marty also ran the news desk for this week’s BTC++ Conference in Austin, which included a diverse set of technical bitcoin discussions.
Primal Founder and CEO Miljan Braticevic published an essay on Primal’s integration of Blossom servers for more decentralized and censorship-resistant media hosting.
Market Updates
America’s monetary politburo met again this week to nod in agreement that holding the price of time steady at 4.25-4.5% is still the right move. Chief shaman Jerome Powell noted in his public remarks that economic uncertainty has increased and that stagflationary forces may be on the horizon.
Longtime Powell critic President Trump responded to the update by calling Powell “a FOOL,” which we’d call a bit more decorous than last week’s “major loser” if not for the caps lock.
Former Fed Governor and potential current Shadow Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gave more remarks this week shortly after the FOMC meeting once again questioning the Fed’s credibility.
The Asian trade theater continued to heat up this week, touched off by the largest strengthening in the Taiwanese dollar / USD exchange rate in nearly 40 years. This move remains worth watching as it has already put significant strain on local insurers and asset managers.
Japan’s finance minister walked back last week’s threat of using the country’s $1 trillion+ stash of US Treasuries as a bargaining chip in US-Japan trade negotiations. However, Japan also joined China and South Korea in issuing a joint statement against “escalating trade protectionism.”
Meanwhile, local reports suggested China has initiated another round of major monetary easing to offset the early impact of tariff disruptions, and Chinese media group Caixin ran a story on the growing problem of personal and small business debt servicing in the country.
The US and China announced that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would meet this coming weekend with some of his Chinese counterparts for the two countries’ first direct trade discussions since Liberation Day. A Reuters report this week cited local sources indicating that growing stress in the Chinese economy prompted Xi’s team to come to the table.
Trump suggested that it could make sense to reduce China’s tariff rates to the low, low price of 80%, but also said “it’s up to Scott B.”
Elsewhere in Artful Deals, the UK (with whom the US notably runs a trade surplus) became the first country to sign a new trade deal with the US. It’s unclear how needle-moving the main terms of the deal will be, but the agreement may be an important first step in boxing out China from the revised global trade and security order Trump is looking to create.
On the back of all those updates, the US 10-year Treasury yield quietly moved back near 4.4%, close to the level that touched off April’s huge bond market volatility. That said, speed may be more important than direction of travel, and the MOVE Index has remained pretty subdued.
Domestically, some data points this week looked a bit better, as the latest ISM Services reading came in above expectations (though with much higher Prices Paid), and Goldman Sachs revised its Q2 GDP growth expectation up to 2.4% after a relatively strong Q1 earnings season.
Despite some apparent progress on trade talks and some domestic green shoots, famed investor and increasingly vocal bitcoiner Paul Tudor Jones projected that the stock market is still likely to make new lows from here given how disruptive even reduced tariffs on China will be.
Lending credence to that view are the continuing alarm bells going off from supply chain and logistics executives, including Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen, who this week predicted “mass bankruptcies” for small businesses under the current tariff proposal.
Not to worry, though, as Secretary Bessent reaffirmed in Congressional testimony this week that, regardless of stress in the real economy, the US will never default on its debt and can always just raise the debt ceiling.
Despite all the uncertainty and a persistently unfavorable monetary backdrop from the Fed, bitcoin once again broke the $100,00 level again this week, bringing its total value to $2 trillion and making it the fifth largest asset in the world by market cap.
Amid the strong move, several Wall Street stalwarts published updated views on bitcoin this week, as a new Morgan Stanley report seriously entertained the question of bitcoin’s role as a global reserve asset, and Bernstein said it expects another $300 billion of corporate treasury flows into bitcoin through 2029.
Goldman Sachs also reported a significant increase in its IBIT holdings through Q1, meaning the asset manager was adding to its exposure (likely on behalf of clients) despite the quarter’s sharp price drawdown. Goldman is now the largest publicly disclosed holder of IBIT globally.
Meanwhile, several legacy asset management publications took note of Brown University’s recently disclosed allocation to IBIT.
More broadly, YTD flows into IBIT have now surpassed flows into GLD despite bitcoin’s choppy performance and the yellow metal’s monster run through the first four months of the year.
Regulatory Update
Newly released documents indicate that the Treasury Department’s FinCEN arm explicitly told federal prosecutors that Samourai Wallet’s non-custodial software did not constitute a money transmission service six months before the prosecution filed charges against the company.
At this time, the Southern District of New York has said it will not drop the charges despite this update and a DOJ memo from last month calling for an end to “regulation by prosecution” of cryptocurrency wallets and privacy services.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), one of three key banking regulators in the United States, issued a statement this week clarifying that banks can engage in custody of digital assets, potentially a major milestone for greater institutional involvement with bitcoin (and a development we acknowledge will come with major pros and cons).
New Hampshire’s governor signed into law a bill that will allow the state to make investments into bitcoin, other digital assets with a market cap above $500 billion (i.e. only bitcoin), and precious metals. The legislation makes New Hampshire the first state to explicitly authorize allocation of state funds to bitcoin in some form.
In another encouraging development, Oregon enacted new legislation that updates the state’s Uniform Commercial Code to make bitcoin easier to use as collateral.
Elsewhere in state bitcoin adoption, an Arizona state senator said she plans to refile the strategic bitcoin reserve bill that was approved by the state’s legislature but vetoed by the governor last week, and Florida withdrew its outstanding strategic bitcoin reserve bills.
The Senate failed to advance the much-hyped GENIUS Act for a stablecoin regulatory framework in the US, which has been viewed (for better or worse) as the near-term cornerstone of Republican “crypto” policy. Republicans are expected to re-introduce the bill shortly.
A draft of new crypto “market structure” legislation was also released this week.
The Bitcoin Conference announced Vice President JD Vance will appear as a featured speaker, the latest signpost that the Trump administration continues to at least see political value in courting the bitcoin bloc.
Noteworthy
Strive Asset Management announced it plans to go public as a bitcoin treasury company via a reverse merger.
In a significant policy shift, Apple announced it will eliminate its toll on in-app transactions, including some bitcoin and crypto payments.
Steak n Shake announced it will begin accepting bitcoin payments at all locations next week, though it’s unclear at this point how transactions will be facilitated.
The Bank for International Settlements published a new research paper on bitcoin this week suggesting (somewhat unsurprisingly) that liquidity, higher local inflation, and capital controls drive increased use of bitcoin.
The Large Hadron Collider successfully turned lead into gold this week. No word yet on the LHC’s ability to turn altcoins into bitcoin, but we’re not bullish.
Travel
Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas, May 27-29
Bitcoin Policy Summit, Washington DC, June 25-26