Early Riders | Open Range Weekly | 11.16.25
Bitcoin dipped over 8% on the week, to a market capitalization of $1.9T.
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Michael, Brian, and Liam discuss the latest in capital formation, market structure, and latest deals on this week's podcast.
You can find all our episodes on our podcast website as well as listen on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Industry & Institutional Updates
Cash App enabled “Pay with Bitcoin,” letting users spend BTC directly from the app at participating merchants across their 4m business customer base allowing merchants to auto convert revenue into bitcoin or dollars.
Harvard tripled its bitcoin position to $448m as of September 30th, while doubling its gold position. Bitcoin is now the largest publicly known position in the endowment.
Emory doubled its bitcoin holdings to over $50m as of September 30th and added a gold holding as well.
Al Warda disclosed a bitcoin position worth over $500m as of September 30th. The investment firm is managed by the Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Ledger considered an IPO or fresh fundraising as the M&A and fundraising environment continues to be favorable for digital asset companies.
Gemini published its Q3 2025 earnings, highlighting 52% growth in revenue q/q.
Coinbase dropped plans to buy BVNK, citing shifting strategic priorities.
SoFi rolled out digital asset trading for bitcoin and other tokens expanding its consumer finance app.
Amboss & Voltage partnered to integrate Lightning data and infrastructure, improving node visibility and uptime.
Grayscale filed a public registration statement for a proposed IPO, broadening capital-markets access.
Regulatory Updates
Senate Agriculture Committee released a bipartisan draft that put digital commodities under CFTC spot-market oversight while the SEC kept jurisdiction over digital-asset securities.
Luxembourg sovereign wealth fund allocated 1% of its assets to bitcoin.
Czech National Bank posted made a test purchase of $1m in bitcoin and stablecoins.
A Chinese cybersecurity firm alleged the U.S. stole ~$13.2B in bitcoin five years ago in a mining pool hack.
What We’re Watching
We're continuing to watch a flurry of 13-F filings, highlighting security disclosures of pensions, hedge funds, endowments, and sovereigns continue to grow their bitcoin holdings through bitcoin ETF structures.
We continue to think there is a better way with Multi-Institution Custody, in-kind contributions and redemptions, and security like exposure through the Onramp Bitcoin Trust.
Chart of the Week
IBIT is currently Harvard's largest position disclosed in its 13F filing.
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