Early Riders 2025 Recap & 2026 Predictions
Introduction
2025 will probably be remembered as a “two truths” year for bitcoin.
Price action was noisy and unhelpful if you were hoping for a clean, year-long trend. The market spent long stretches grinding higher on better access and stronger marginal demand, although overexuberant buyers were washed out with laverage that frustrated tourists. The choppy price action still signaled a different class of buyers for bitcoin remain in the market, as flows into bitcoin ETFs remained one of the top 10 etfs despite disappointing price results.
Off the screen, the year was materially constructive. More institutions moved from watching to operating: investment committees got comfortable with spot exposure and banks and fintechs kept quietly building distribution and acquiring key digital asset companies, often at premium valuations.
The Early Riders team offered their year in review for 2025, including top deals, signal, and noise, as well as their 2026 predictions and businesses they want to see built.
The Top Deals of 2025
The most important deals of 2025 were about owning infrastructure, distribution, and settlement rails. Sovereigns, payment networks, and capital-market incumbents all made explicit bets that digital assets are no longer optional.
MGX Invests $2B in Binance: Abu Dhabi–backed MGX’s investment into Binance was the most consequential deal of the year. A sovereign wealth fund taking a strategic stake in the world’s largest exchange due to Binance’s global trading dominance, CZ’s relocation to the GCC, and the UAE’s energy and regulatory posture converged into a deliberate, long-term bet. - Liam Nelson
Mastercard’s $2.1B Rumored Acquisition of ZeroHash: Mastercard’s rumored acquisition of ZeroHash, a digital asset infrastructure provider, marked a shift from experimentation to execution. The move signaled that wallets, stablecoins, and crypto orchestration are becoming core capabilities. - Michael Tanguma
Block Activates Bitcoin at the Point of Sale: While not an M&A transaction, Block’s activation of bitcoin payments at Square terminals closed a multi-year loop between merchant acceptance and bitcoin infrastructure. - Brian Cubellis
Honorable mentions: Coinbase Acquires Deribit for ~$3B: Coinbase’s acquisition of Deribit marked a decisive step in consolidating global crypto derivatives under regulated, institution-friendly distribution. Deribit’s dominance in options and perpetuals gave Coinbase immediate scale in sophisticated trading products that had historically lived offshore and outside U.S. regulatory comfort. - Michael Tanguma
Citadel Invests $200M in Kraken: Citadel’s investment into Kraken reflected market-makers’ growing desire to own liquidity venues. Citadel invested ahead of Kraken’s planned IPO implying a valuation of nearly $20B. - Liam Nelson
The Top Signals of 2025
The clearest signals of 2025 came not from price, but from who was buying, building, and integrating bitcoin into the ecosystem. These developments pointed to bitcoin’s growing maturity as a macro asset embedded in sovereign strategy, institutional portfolios, and industrial infrastructure.
Harvard endowment acquisition of Bitcoin and Gold: Harvard allocating almost $500m to bitcoin, and over $100m to gold show a focus on commodities during a period of potential inflation. - Liam Nelson
ETF inflows despite weak price performance: Bitcoin ETFs ranked among the top inflow products even during a flat-to-down year, signaling unlocked demand from allocators who had waited years for compliant access as institutions continue to face pressures from clients to increase allocations. - Brian Cubellis
Banks moving through stablecoins first: Regulatory clarity around stablecoins opened the door for banks to normalize digital money, setting up future bitcoin custody, lending, and integration. - Michael Tanguma
Honorable mention: Energy and AI reframed Bitcoin mining: The convergence of AI infrastructure and mining forced markets to understand what actually secures bitcoin: physical assets, energy investment, and grid participation. - Brian Cubellis
The Top Noise of 2025
Much of the loudest narratives in 2025 distracted from the structural forces reshaping the market. These narratives generated engagement, but offered little durable insight into bitcoin’s long-term trajectory.
Digital asset treasury companies: Many corporates offering “bitcoin-like exposure” leveraged capital-markets optics with no long term sustainable plan. When something sounds too good to be true it usually is. - Michael Tanguma
Four-year cycle theory: Anchoring to historical halving-based price patterns ignored how sovereigns, banks, and ETFs actually allocate capital, which is causing many participants to sell based on outdated information. - Brian Cubellis
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): The lack of buy in across the government and inability to cut non discretionary expenditures like social security, medicare, medicaid, interest expenses, and defense made the well intentioned plan doomed from the start. The lack of interest in reducing the debt and deficit in Washington become consesnsus by the end of the year. - Liam Nelson
Honorable mention: Quantum fear-mongering: Long-known theoretical risks resurfaced around the potential for quantum computing to hack the bitcoin network, and were amplified by misaligned incentives. - Michael Tanguma
Our Predictions for 2026
The groundwork has been laid in 2025 for sovereigns, established banks, and capital allocators to get into bitcoin and digital assets in a larger way.
The U.S. Government Acquires Bitcoin: The U.S. will pursue a budget-neutral pathway to acquire a strategic bitcoin reserve. - Brian Cubellis
The Triples: Bitcoin price triples, gold price triples, and M&A activity in the digital asset space triples in 2026. M&A activity which sat at $8B in 2025 is set to grow significantly as bitcoin continues to institutionalize. - Michael Tanguma
Banks Acquire Digital Asset Exchanges: Banks will move from B2B partnerships to more acquisitions of exchanges, custodians, and stablecoin infrastructure, prioritizing control over speed. Liam predicted that there could be a single acquisition of an exchange by a bank at a valuation over $24B given the strategic importance of the industry, as very large banks optimize for acquistions for speed to market, rather than dealing with complaince and beauracracy internally. - Liam Nelson
Honorable mentions: Custody Failures Will Replace Volatility as Primary Risk: The dominant market shocks will come from custody failures, theft, and operational breakdowns. - Brian Cubellis & Michael Tanguma
A High-Profile Corporate Bitcoin Loss Occurs: A poorly prepared treasury or corporate holder will lose bitcoin due to inadequate custody or governance, accelerating demand for institutional controls and safer custody technology. - Michael Tanguma
Physical and Digital Attacks Continue to Scale: As bitcoin monetizes, the ROI on coercion and cyber-attack rises, forcing a re-rating of personal security and operational discipline. - Brian Cubellis
Four-Year Cycle Thinking Fully Breaks: Institutional and sovereign flows will further invalidate halving-based models, making cycle-anchored strategies increasingly ineffective, as the increasing institutional scale puts pressure on the older four-year cycle model. - Brian Cubellis
Businesses We Want to See Built in 2026
The next wave of winners will be businesses offering financial services that make sound money convenient, usable, safe, and easy to understand.
Local Stablecoin & Bitcoin Banks: Community-level institutions offering stablecoin checking and bitcoin savings to young, mobile populations with low CAC and high retention. College campuses offer great targets. - Liam Nelson
Integrated Asset Platforms: Regulated platforms combining bitcoin, gold, and equities under one institutional interface. - Michael Tanguma
Neutral Multi-Institution Key Agents: Jurisdictionally neutral signing entities designed to participate in multi-institution custody quorums without competitive conflicts and previously existing business models. - Brian Cubellis
Let us know your thoughts on the predictions, what we missed, and what you’re looking forward to in 2026. Reach out to contact@earlyriders.com for more.