Ten31 Timestamp 907,278
DT Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth executed its latest act with panache this week, in a staged event complete with hard hats and (possibly) made-up numbers – but hey, what’s a few hundred million among friends? While the President trapped Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in a basement for a televised struggle session, Trump’s attacks on Powell continued to gain more public support from both high-ranking members of the GOP and, surprisingly, a major mainstream economist well outside Trump’s typical sphere of influence. It remains unclear where this story will end up, but it seems undeniable that the Overton Window on Fed independence is continuing to shift away from the long-established consensus of the Acela Corridor; if that continues, this week’s broad meme stonk revival is probably just the first inning of the animal spirit awakening coming soon to a market near you. Meanwhile, the administration made some progress on trade deals with Japan and the EU this week that theoretically look very rich for the United States, though it’s still uncertain exactly how these deals will be executed in practice. What’s clearer is that while Trump continues to publicly undermine the Fed, he posted a bitcoin explanation video from his Truth Social account this week while his media company announced its purchase of $2 billion of bitcoin, making TMTG the 6th-largest public bitcoin treasury company in the US. At the same time, multiple large incumbent financial institutions announced or hinted at moves to gain more exposure to bitcoin, and bitcoin’s price barely blinked while absorbing one of the largest notional sales in the asset’s history. We think there may be some clues to optimal portfolio positioning hidden within this confluence of factors for those interested in long-term wealth preservation.
Portfolio Company Spotlight
Giga Energy is a leading bitcoin mining and data center infrastructure provider. The company helps energy and power producers optimize production and more efficiently use resources that would otherwise be wasted, through both proprietary mining deployments and the operation of tailored equipment including generators, data centers, and electrical infrastructure. Giga works with large players including Nvidia, Core Scientific, and Energy Transfer at the convergence of the energy production, high-performance compute, and bitcoin mining industries, all of which are trends we expect to gain notable momentum over the coming decade.
As the world’s largest investor focused entirely on bitcoin, Ten31 has deployed $200 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 the global rollout of its lending product, starting with six countries:
Media
Fortune Magazine published an interview with Strike Founder and CEO Jack Mallers.
Giga published a profile on their recent collaboration with bitcoin mining hosting provider Simple Mining.
Market Updates
After months of increasingly hostile positioning toward the world’s leading central bank, key members of the Trump administration explicitly suggested this week that the Fed may need a major overhaul, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicating a desire to “reexamine the entire Federal Reserve institution” (though Bessent reiterated he doesn’t see a need for Powell to step down).
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson took it a step further, suggesting that he’s open to modifying the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and that he’s “not even sure where the original constitutional authority is for the Fed.” (Please remember to check on the long-term goldbugs and Ron Paul diehards in your network, as they may be suffering from euphoria-induced cardiac stress.)
After declaring last week that Powell’s removal was “imminent,” Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna referred Powell to the DOJ for a perjury investigation.
Surprisingly, Mohamed El-Erian, a CNBC regular and exemplar of the macro mainstream, expressed sympathy for the anti-Powell view this week and indicated the Fed Chair should resign (though El-Erian views this as a move to protect Fed independence).
But the real show of the week – and possibly meme of the year – was Trump’s passive-aggressive, publicly televised squabbling with Powell, which played out like an episode of The Office and ended with a telling back slap.
After the historically awkward meeting, the President suggested he thinks Powell is now ready to start lowering interest rates, apparently hoping to manifest this into reality (which, to be fair, is a strategy that has worked for him before).
Beyond the Trump-Powell Variety Hour, it was also a notable week for the President’s trade agenda, as the administration announced a landmark trade deal with Japan including 15% reciprocal tariffs and a $550 billion foreign direct investment commitment from the Japanese in which the US will keep, per Trump, “90% of the profits.”
As per protocol with these deals, key details of the agreement are still not entirely clear, and it’s also uncertain if both sides even agree on what the terms actually are.
Elsewhere, the US and EU are reportedly also closing in on their own 15% tariff deal that would look similar to the agreement with Japan. Despite this progress with some major trading partners, Bessent suggested this week that the August 12 deadline for a deal with China is likely to be extended.
Notably, several reports this week suggested that, despite lasting less than two weeks, the recent Israel / Iran conflict put a huge strain on US munitions stockpiles, the latest signpost of the US’s fraying industrial capacity brought on by decades of the dilemma that Trump’s trade policies are at least ostensibly hoping to address (however clumsily).
But not to worry – all your favorite meme stonks like Kohl’s, Krispy Kreme, and American Eagle pumped this week, potentially signaling that retail animal spirits are really starting to warm up.
We imagine such trades will only get more support if the administration moves to pay our more stimulus checks in the near term, as both Trump and Senator Josh Hawley suggested this week.
Speaking of meme stocks, President Trump’s media group announced a purchase of $2 billion of bitcoin this week, immediately making TMTG the sixth-largest holder of bitcoin in US public markets.
Meanwhile, several major financial institutions continued to shade toward embracing bitcoin on the margins, as JP Morgan is reportedly considering offering bitcoin-collateralized loans to clients, and PNC Bank announced a partnership with Coinbase to offer “crypto” trading options to its accounts.
Charles Schwab’s CEO also reiterated that the platform is planning to launch spot bitcoin trading “sometime soon,” though the company has been promising this since last year.
Finally, Galaxy Digital announced it executed one of the largest single bitcoin sales in history, moving more than 80,000 bitcoin from a “Satoshi-era investor” on the open market as part of an estate planning transaction. Despite the large sale, bitcoin’s price declined just a few percentage points and quickly recovered, which we take as a fairly bullish sign of the depth of current demand for bitcoin (relative to prior large sales that have weighed on price much more heavily).
Regulatory Update
The Senate version of the CLARITY Act – the digital assets “market structure bill” passed by the House last week – includes constructive language on money transmitter laws taken from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, an important milestone for bitcoin developers in the US.
President Trump reposted Peter van Valkenburgh’s “greatest bitcoin explanation of all time” on his personal Truth Social page this week.
Noteworthy
Michael Saylor’s Strategy unveiled STRC, its latest preferred stock instrument. The vehicle, which appears intended to function roughly like a money market fund, raised nearly $2.5 billion in a significantly oversubscribed IPO round.
Jack Dorsey’s Block (fka Square) was added to the S&P 500 Index this week, making it the third index constituent after Tesla and Coinbase with significant bitcoin holdings on its balance sheet.
The company also published a new overview of regulatory policies aimed at encouraging bitcoin’s use as “everyday money.”
Bitcoin Magazine released an informative overview on the recent Quantum Bitcoin Summit in San Francisco, which summarizes the latest thinking on the issue among bitcoin developers and quantum computing experts.
Travel
Bitcoin Park Imagine IF Summit, Sep 19-20
Portfolio Company Retreat, early October