Early Riders | Open Range Weekly | 06.22.26
Bitcoin was down (2.1%) this week to a market capitalization of $1.30T
Industry & Institutional Updates
BlackRock launched the iShares Bitcoin Premium ETF, the first covered-call Bitcoin ETF from a mega-issuer, writing options on IBIT for monthly income.
Nuvei agreed to acquire cross-border payments firm Payoneer for $2.75 billion in cash.
State Street launched a money market fund for stablecoin reserves under the GENIUS Act, with State Street Bank and Anchorage Digital as initial investors.
Fidelity filed to launch its own money market fund for stablecoin issuers, days after State Street's, investing reserves in short-dated Treasuries.
Coinbase unveiled AI tools that give investment advice and execute trades on a user's behalf, including an SEC-registered AI adviser.
Strategy bought 1,587 Bitcoin for roughly $100 million, bringing its total holdings to 846,842 BTC.
Franklin Templeton filed for two ETFs that automatically reinvest stock dividends into Bitcoin exposure.
BitGo authorized a $50 million buyback of its stock, saying the shares trade below the fundamental value of the business.
Karta raised $140 million, led by Galaxy Ventures and Community Investment Management, to bring U.S. credit cards to global travelers.
Trace Finance raised a $32 million Series A led by CoinFund to scale regulated banking and stablecoin settlement across Brazil, the U.S., and emerging markets.
Regulatory & Sovereign Updates
Congress agreed on a housing bill that bars the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency through 2030.w
The CFTC hired an SEC digital asset adviser with blockchain forensics expertise as its chief data innovation officer.
The SEC proposed scrapping the decades-old trade-through rule, a change seen as clearing a path for tokenized equities.
Oman launched a mandatory national Bitcoin mining pool, requiring all licensed miners to route hashpower through the government-backed OmanHash.
Zimbabwe introduced its first digital asset regulations, requiring virtual asset firms to register annually with its financial intelligence unit.
What We're Watching: Cursor's Extreme Efficiency
SpaceX agreed to buy Cursor for $60B in stock this week, days after its own listing. The operating model, valuation, and size are astonishing for a company of its age and size.
Cursor reached roughly $4B ARR on a team estimated at a few hundred people, about $13M of revenue per employee. A typical top SaaS company sits near $610K. That is roughly 21 times the revenue per head, and Cursor went from zero to $2B faster than any B2B company on record.
This is AI-native operating leverage at the frontier. The cost of useful output is collapsing, and the headcount that once gated revenue growth no longer does. More than a handful of companies are on track to reach $10M ARR with fewer than ten people this year.
The enduring companies of this cycle will not be the ones that raised the most or hired the fastest, size is a negative and constraints breed creativity.
Chart of the Week
Federal interest payments have crossed $1 trillion at an annual rate and now exceed what the United States spends on national defense for the first time in decades. Interest has become one of the fastest-growing lines in the federal budget, the direct result of financing a rising debt load at higher rates. For allocators, it is a structural case for holding assets that cannot be debased, which sits at the center of the Bitcoin thesis.
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