Open Range | April 27th, 2025 | Institutions, Trade Wars, and the Safe Haven Awakening

This week, Bitcoin reclaimed center stage. Institutions are piling in. Trade wars remain uncertain. The dollar is faltering. Apolitical finite supply stands apart.

Bitcoin & Macro Update

The price of bitcoin rallied over the past week, up 11.3%, just short of $94,000 due to heightened demand for politically neutral assets, as well as substantially higher institutional interest.

In traditional markets, the S&P 500 rose 4.6% on the week, while the Nasdaq Composite led major indexes with a 6.7% gain, boosted by strong earnings from large-cap technology companies and easing fears over U.S.–China trade tensions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also posted solid performance, climbing 2.5%.

Meanwhile, gold prices edged slightly lower, finishing the week down 0.25% at $3,318.95 per ounce, as improving risk sentiment tempered safe-haven demand.

In the bond market, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield declined modestly, falling 5 basis points to 4.29%, reflecting persistent investor caution even as equities rallied.

In a telling sign of the times, the U.S. Dollar Index plunged to a 3-year low​, as investors shunned dollar assets amidst tariff uncertainty.

Bitcoin’s strength in this chaos – rising as the dollar and stocks fell – bolstered the “digital gold” narrative given its lack of counterparty risk. 

In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Federal Reserve faced extraordinary pressure from the White House. President Trump’s sweeping new tariffs on almost every major trading partner rattled markets and provoked foreign retaliation. At the same time, Trump openly attacked Fed Chair Jerome Powell for “slow-walking” interest rate cuts, even musing that Powell’s “termination can’t come fast enough”​. Investors were startled by these threats to Fed independence – a cornerstone of market confidence. However, by mid-week, the White House walked back most of the extreme rhetoric.

There has not been any formal adjustment, but Trump claimed plans to lower tariffs on China moving forward, while initiating trade discussions. China claimed this was incorrect, offering little assurances or certainty for those without an inside view. Initial data shows a 44% decline in ocean container bookings to the US from China, indicating the pinch felt by the tariffs and incentive for both parties to make a compromise.

Institutional Update

Charles Schwab, who manages over $10 trillion in assets, revealed plans to enter the spot "crypto" trading market within a year.

Russia’s Ministry of Finance and Central Bank jointly announced plans to launch a government-backed cryptocurrency exchange — specifically targeted for "super-qualified investors" (large institutions, high-net-worth individuals, and possibly sovereign wealth funds). While details are still emerging, the move signals a coordinated national strategy toward regulated Bitcoin market participation, although the country still maintains its hostility to retail bitcoin trading and ownership.

Ruya Bank, a Dubai-based Islamic banking institution, became the first Islamic-compliant bank to offer Bitcoin investment services. Ruya will allow clients to invest in Bitcoin and virtual assets while complying with Shariah law. This represents a major milestone in bridging Bitcoin to Middle Eastern finance, which traditionally has been cautious due to religious and regulatory concerns. 

Twenty One officially launched this week — a Bitcoin-native financial infrastructure company backed by Tether, SoftBank Group, Jack Mallers, and Cantor Equity Partners. Twenty One plans to go public through a SPAC merger, starting out with a Bitcoin treasury of 42,000 BTC. Upon listing, it would become the third-largest Bitcoin treasury among public companies. 

At the same time, Strike shared a few metrics of the company publicly, a trend pioneered by River a few weeks prior.

Elsewhere, Strategy acquired an additional 6,556 BTC for over $555m, bringing their current total to 538,200 BTC, maintaining a strong lead in the public markets. Semler Scientific disclosed it had purchased an additional 111 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 3,303 BTC. Metaplanet continued their bitcoin purchases as well, exceeding 5,000 BTC.

Regulatory Update

The Federal Reserve announced the withdrawal of guidance for banks related to their crypto-asset and dollar token activities, which no longer requires banks to notify or get Federal Reserve approval for engaging in crypto-related activities.

Paul Atkins, the newly appointed chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), emphasized the need for clear regulatory guidelines for the cryptocurrency sector in his inaugural remarks.

Circle, Bitgo, Coinbase, and Paxos, are all considering applying for bank charters or licenses.

Early Riders Media

Speculative Attack: Pierre Rochard on Bitcoin's Endgame

What happens when the architect of Bitcoin’s speculative attack thesis builds the first bond market around it? Pierre Rochard joins Final Settlement to explain.

Pierre Rochard — one of Bitcoin’s longest-standing advocates, prolific writers, and a co-founder of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute joined the team this week for a great episode. Pierre shared the intellectual journey that led him from Austrian economics in high school, to Bitcoin adoption, and now to launching his latest venture: the Bitcoin Bond Company.

We began by revisiting Pierre’s 2014 piece Speculative Attack, which imagined a world where investors would borrow in weak fiat currencies to buy Bitcoin — creating massive stress on the traditional monetary system. He broke down how this dynamic has evolved in the real world over the past decade: with institutions tightening liquidity, imposing capital controls, and even using Bitcoin reserves to defend the dollar. Yet despite these interventions, Bitcoin’s strength has continued to grow, and the speculative attack concept remains more relevant than ever today.

One fascinating point Pierre highlighted is how reality diverged from his original thesis: namely, the rise of Bitcoin itself as collateral, rather than relying solely on fiat financial assets. He also discussed how Michael Saylor’s strategy of using the equity markets, rather than the banking system, opened up entirely new pathways for Bitcoin capital formation. These insights aren’t just theory anymore — they are shaping real-world corporate and sovereign strategies today.

This backdrop sets the stage for Pierre’s new project: the Bitcoin Bond Company. Unlike traditional firms that mix debt and equity exposure, Pierre’s vision is to build purely credit-based instruments, structured through bankruptcy-remote Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) — minimizing corporate risk and maximizing Bitcoin security. His model focuses on tranching risk: offering senior bonds for conservative investors seeking over-collateralization, mezzanine layers for moderate return seekers, and junior tranches for those looking for high-upside, Bitcoin-leveraged plays.

In doing so, Pierre is aiming to open up Bitcoin exposure to a much broader pool of institutional investors who otherwise could not hold Bitcoin directly — whether because of regulatory constraints, fiduciary mandates, or simple aversion to volatility. It’s a smart move: building products that meet these investors where they are today, while subtly pulling them closer to Bitcoin’s inevitable gravitational force.

We also talked about the timing of this launch. With the approval of Bitcoin ETFs, the public endorsement of Bitcoin by major institutions like BlackRock, and even acknowledgment from U.S. political leaders, the Overton window has shifted dramatically. Pierre emphasized that while Bitcoin adoption has made major strides, it’s still early — most large capital pools have effectively 0% Bitcoin exposure. That’s the multi-trillion-dollar opportunity his company is targeting.

Beyond the financial engineering, though, Pierre stressed the importance of Bitcoin education. His parallel project, The Reorg podcast, revisits and reinterprets foundational Bitcoin writings from the past decade — aiming to make them accessible to a new generation of investors, builders, and thinkers. He sees this educational mission as inseparable from driving Bitcoin adoption at the corporate, sovereign, and personal levels.

If you want to understand how the Bitcoin bond market could evolve — and hear from someone who’s been shaping Bitcoin’s intellectual foundation for more than a decade — this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Incentives Rewired: Bitcoin’s Role in Reshaping Real Estate

What happens when the world’s hardest money collides with the world’s biggest asset class?

In this episode of Final Settlement, the Early Riders team sits down with two of the foremost thinkers at the intersection of Bitcoin and real estate—Leon Wankum and Kelly Lannan—to explore a financial paradigm shift that most investors are still blind to. If you thought real estate was just about cash flow, this conversation will flip bridge the gap to a bitcoin standard.

Leon and Kelly don’t just theorize about Bitcoin’s role in real estate—they’re living it. Both come from deep, multigenerational experience in real estate development. But over the past several years, they’ve begun to rethink the foundations of value itself. Why does real estate hold a $300 trillion monetary premium? Why have homes become savings accounts instead of places to live? The answer, they argue, is broken money—and Bitcoin is here to fix it.

One of the most compelling themes from the episode is how fiat currency inflation has distorted incentives across the entire real estate market. With cheap debt and endless liquidity, quality has collapsed while prices soar. Builders cut corners. Investors buy blindly. And housing is no longer priced as shelter—it’s priced as a store of value. But now that Bitcoin exists, offering a harder, more transparent savings technology, that dynamic is starting to break down.

The conversation also gets tactical. Leon shares a real-world example of using Bitcoin as a maintenance reserve for a 70-unit apartment complex—turning €80,000 into €180,000 in under a year while the rest of their fiat reserves lost purchasing power. For developers navigating rising capex, tightening credit, and softening rents, Bitcoin isn’t just a hedge. It’s a survival tool.

Kelly dives into the nuts and bolts of what Bitcoin integration actually looks like on the ground—from refinancing strategies to hedging against rising input costs. He makes a powerful case for using Bitcoin to protect downside in a way that traditional real estate strategies simply can’t match. And together, they sketch out a future where real estate is built to last, not flipped to speculate.

But the conversation goes even deeper: Can Bitcoin restore architectural quality and community design? Can it shift time preference in how we build and live? Can it help real estate rediscover its soul? 

This episode is more than a conversation—it’s a wake-up call for anyone in real estate. If you care about where money is headed, how cities are built, or how to survive the next wave of monetary disruption, this one’s for you.