Early Riders | Open Range Weekly | 11.23.25
Bitcoin fell almost 10% to a market capitalization of $1.73T.
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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
Kraken raised $800M at a ~$20B valuation from Citadel, Jane Street, DRW, Tribe Capital, and more. The firm also confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO.
An Abu Dhabi backed fund tripled its bitcoin bet in the months before the crash. In a rare move, a spokesperson mentioned they see it as a store of value similar to gold, and expect both bitcoin and gold to be both short and long term positions.
Ledn received a strategic investment from Tether to scale bitcoin-backed credit and institutional services.
Metaplanet approved a ¥21.25B (~$140M) Class B preferred raise with a 4.9% dividend.
Bullish reported a record Q3 with adjusted revenue $76.5m, and adjusted EBITDA of $28.6m, and over $1B traded in newly launched digital asset options.
Blockchain.com announced plans to go public next year, to scale the digital asset exchange.
JP Morgan reported that MicroStrategy could face billions in potential outflows, if MSCI indices decide that digital asset treasury companies do not belong in traditional stock benchmarks, by January 15th next year. Michael Saylor posted a response to the concern on X.
Lendaswap launched a non-custodial BTC-to-stablecoin swap exchange on Arkade (Ark L2), enabling instant, self-custodied swaps.
Regulatory Updates
The OCC said banks could hold crypto on balance sheets to pay blockchain network fees tied to approved banking activities under new guidance.
Brazil considered taxing international crypto payments, tightening cross-border rules.
New Hampshire launched a $100M Bitcoin line of credit that isn’t taxpayer-backed; borrowers post ~160% bitcoin collateral with automated liquidation near ~130%, enabling borrowing against, rather than selling, bitcoin and seeding a state Bitcoin Economic Development Fund.
Rep. Warren Davidson introduced legislation to allow taxes paid in bitcoin to grow the U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve.
Bitmain faced a federal investigation over national-security concerns, if the machines could be remotely manipulated for espionage or control of critical US infrastructure.
What We’re Watching
Galaxy released their quarterly State of Crypto Leverage report. The report showed a new all time high of leverage in the digital asset market, but also highlighted how lenders now generally embrace overcollateralized lending standards following failures of 2021.
From the Early Riders portfolio: Arch had its best quarter ever by absolute loan book growth (based on self-reported figures), expanding its book by $49.29 million in Q3.
Chart of the Week
The large sell-off of the past week was associated with some of the highest volume days since the presidential election, as buyers stepped in amid the price downturn. Chart via Vijay Poyapati.
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