Early Riders | Open Range Weekly | 12.21.25
Bitcoin dropped 1.3% this week, to a market capitalization of $1.76T.
Early Riders Media
Brian, Michael, and Liam unpack why “the banks are here” is the most underappreciated adoption catalyst, why large incumbents will prefer partnerships before deeper builds and acquisitions, and how stablecoins and prediction markets are accelerating the “everything-market” convergence 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
Coinbase added support for prediction markets and equities, as well as upgrades its APIs, highlighting the trend of "everything" apps.
Gemini launched a new prediction markets platform after receiving its contract market license from the CFTC, expanding regulated derivatives-style products beyond traditional exchanges.
HashKey, a virtual asset trading platform debuted its IPO in Hong Kong posting a $206M valuation, but has been reporting net losses since 2022.
Speed raised $8m from Tether and Ego Death Capital to further its lightning focused payments gateway.
BitGo enabled Lightning payments, expanding fast-settlement rails for wallets and institutional flows that need cheaper and quicker bitcoin transfers.
Strategy acquired nearly $1 billion of Bitcoin in its latest purchase for the second straight week, utilizing a sale of common stock to fund the purchase, bringing the firm's total bitcoin holdings to ~671K.
Interactive Brokers announced it is now offering stablecoin account funding for U.S. clients. This follows the company's recent investment into zerohash.
Bhutan pledged a $1B (10,000 BTC) fund tied to its “Mindfulness City” vision, signaling continued sovereign accumulation linked to national development as they look to collateralize and optimize risk-managed yield strategies.
Kontigo raised a $20M seed round to build its stablecoin bank, citing its recent performance of $30M in annual revenue, $1B in payments volumes, and over 1M users. Kontigo allows users to open an account in USDC or bitcoin, send payments across 100+ countries converting USDC into numerous different currencies.
OKX rolled out spot margin trading in Europe allowing up to 10× leverage on BTC and ETH.
MetaMask added support for Bitcoin in addition to Ethereum and Solana, with additional enhancements including, prediction market trading, in-wallet perps, and more.
Regulatory Updates
The Federal Reserve has rolled back a 2023 supervisory statement on “novel activities” that discouraged some banks from getting involved with digital asset-related business. That framework was cited in the Fed’s handling of Custodia Bank’s request for a Fed master account.
FDIC proposed a stablecoin application framework as “GENIUS Act” momentum builds, laying the groundwork for how bank-linked stablecoin activity could be reviewed and supervised.
UK Parliament signaled its plan to regulate cryptocurrency like financial products by 2027, following the passage of the Digital Asset property act last month.
What We’re Watching
Speed Wallet announced its latest raise of nearly $8M this week. The company known for being the payment processor of choice for Steak & Shake enables merchants to accept both bitcoin and stablecoin payments. Its consumer wallet, built on the lightning network allows individuals and businesses to transfer bitcoin and stablecoins nearly instantly, buy tokenized gold, and shop in the app.
Speed has processed over $1.5B in annual payments volume, and serves 1.2m users.
Chart of the Week
Net inflows into bitcoin etfs have mostly leveled off over the past few months, driven by choppy price action.
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