CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.
The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2062.9, down 0.5% (-9.64) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Five of the 20 assets are trading higher.
Leaders: NEAR (+4.1%) and TAO (+1.6%).
Laggards: ICP (-1.6%) and HBAR (-1.3%).
The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.
Recently Strategy made headlines by saying that it might sell some bitcoin to meet business objectives. This came as a surprise to many people because of what was previously regarded as a hard-lined stance to never sell. Saylor even (jokingly) tweeted stuff like “Sell a kidney if you must, but keep the bitcoin.”
The reality is that bitcoin sales were always on the table for any bitcoin treasury company. The quip of “never sell” is an articulation of a long-term investment philosophy founded upon the extreme low time preference that is common in bitcoin discourse. But even within this discourse, there are frequently cases where almost everyone agrees it makes sense to sell, despite the ubiquity of the HODL meme.
The simplest reasons involve improving one’s quality of life: buying a house to raise a family, paying for a trip to a place you’ve wanted to go, sending your kids to college, unexpected and severe medical bills. The list is very long. HODLing often isn’t as long.
For a company, the reason to do anything (and indeed the reason for a company’s existence) is to improve shareholder value.
Consider another group of bitcoin companies that have been selling. Our Q1 Report highlights that Bitcoin miners have sold 25,376 BTC in Q1 2026 to fund AI pivots. The value creation math is simple. Management believes that their AI capex will yield better risk-adjusted gains than the bitcoin they sold. Under these assumptions, it makes sense that they sold bitcoin to fund AI. In fact, this is reason 0: if there is a better investment than bitcoin, then selling bitcoin for that makes complete sense.
For Strategy—and all treasury companies that are focused on raising capital to accumulate bitcoin—there are clear cases where selling can create value. Let’s go through some of them.
Growing Bitcoin per share (BPS) is the goal of most treasury strategies. A period over period growth in BPS is called BTC Yield. BTC Yield is normally achieved when bitcoin is purchased, which increases the numerator in the BPS ratio. However, it can also be achieved when shares are purchased, which decreases the denominator in the BPS ratio.
If shares trade at a discount to the bitcoin they represent, then selling bitcoin to buy back stock always leads to an increase in BPS. This is because the percent change in bitcoin holdings is still greater than the percent change in shares outstanding.
The discount rule also applies in the case of ongoing obligations (such as preferred stock dividends or debt coupons) that cannot be funded with operating cash flow. If shares trade at a discount, then it is better to sell bitcoin to pay these obligations. This would lead to a smaller decrease in BPS.
Because ratings agencies have much sway over how capital markets allocate funds, their rules and guidelines need to be respected for greater ease in the capital formation process. In December we published a report on Strategy’s historic S&P credit ratings. In it we discussed the different options for companies to receive better credit ratings, which would ultimately help their credit instruments obtain a lower cost of capital.
The cash reserve option, which was found in S&P’s comments and discussed in our report, was promptly adopted by Strategy. By January 2026, Strategy had about a $2.2 billion cash reserve, and this has meaningfully reduced investors’ fears of an inability to cover preferred dividends.
In this scenario, it is perfectly okay for a company to sell some bitcoin to create the cash reserve to appease the market so that it can sell its credit instruments at lower costs of capital. This seems convoluted, but ultimately you have to meet your creditors where they are at to get them to give you their money. There is no way around it.
Another corollary to that is bitcoin sales to retire debt. Debts are senior liabilities which reduce the attractiveness of preferred stock as credit instruments. If these can be retired, then preferred stocks could see a better cost of capital.
In the long term, a better cost of capital could be worth a lot due to compounding and being able to service liabilities on more capital. For instance, it’s easier to compound if you pay 9% vs 11.5% — an extra 250 bps makes a very big difference over time. And you pay less for $1 billion borrowed at 7% than you do for $700 billion borrowed at 11%.
Bitcoin does not have a wash sale rule in the USA (at the time of writing). You can sell it to realize a loss and then immediately buy it and reset the cost basis lower. This lets you book a loss, which serves as a tax asset. In fact, Strategy actually did this exact thing back in December 2022 at the prior cycle’s bottom.
Today this tax benefit still exists, so it is another very good reason to sell bitcoin. However, many might not see it as selling if the company immediately repurchases. But a company can easily combine the tax advantage of a realized loss with an action like a share buyback or debt repayment.
Bitcoin is still quite new and this comes with a lot of FUD. Sometimes the FUD is just ridiculous but it still catches on. Strategy selling bitcoin is one such instance of ridiculous FUD: the idea is that they are propping up the whole bitcoin market, or that if they sell the entire bitcoin balance sheet model is instantly debunked. Therefore, if they can sell 50,000 BTC and prove that nothing serious happens to the bitcoin market nor the stock, then this can dispel such notions and make the market more receptive toward the corporate bitcoin balance sheet model.
At any rate, this would be the silliest reason to do it, but sometimes people come up with silly ideas that just need to be proven wrong. And one last point on this — the market is generally quite efficient; it is the media outlets and influencers that are incentivized to push sensationalist and poorly reasoned narrative out of whatever they can find. Real allocators with money rarely make decisions based on these “sources” over actual research.
This is something people don’t really talk about at all. But in the event of a real de-peg of variable rate instruments, the company has the option to buy back the instrument at a heavy discount to par, thus retiring obligations with very high costs of capital.
This is basically closing a winning tax-free and borrow-free short position on the company’s own preferred stock. STRC for example is issued at $100. If the stock drops to $82 and Strategy sells a billion dollars of BTC to buy back STRC at $82 per share, then it basically pocketed a gain of 100 – 82 = $18 per STRC share shorted (issued) and then repurchased. And this gain isn’t taxable, nor did Strategy have to borrow the shares to do this short.
STRC price action since IPO
The other important thing to note is that such a de-peg does not have to accompany a crash in the bitcoin price. If traders are heavily levered up on STRC (which is certainly possible given what this stock offers), a wick down can lead to stop losses and momentum algos that cause a cascade of selling. In this case, Strategy can sell BTC to retire some STRC shares before enduring a higher dividend (here I assume they would increase the dividend to get the shares back to par).
Don’t be surprised or scared about bitcoin sales. There are plenty of cases where it is in the interest of the company and shareholders to do so.
Bitcoin is money. Money creates optionality. Options are great when used well.
What happened? Bitpanda Enterprise has partnered with IG Europe to support the broker’s crypto trading offering for European investors, marking another step in the convergence of traditional trading platforms and digital asset infrastructure.
Under the agreement, IG Europe will use Bitpanda’s institutional infrastructure for liquidity, trading connectivity and market data.
The move allows IG Europe to expand crypto access while keeping the offering within its regulated operating framework, according to the announcement.
IG Europe is part of IG Group, the FTSE 100-listed trading and investment company. IG Group serves more than 1.3 million customers worldwide across brands including IG, tastytrade, Freetrade and Independent Reserve, with products spanning leveraged trading, stock trading, investments and cryptocurrency trading.
The partnership comes as European brokers face growing demand for crypto exposure from clients who prefer established financial platforms over standalone crypto exchanges.
Bitpanda Enterprise, the institutional arm of Bitpanda, provides digital asset infrastructure for banks, brokers, fintechs, trading firms and other financial institutions. Its offering includes investment infrastructure, liquidity, custody, payments, stablecoins and tokenization tools.
Nadeem Ladki, global head of Bitpanda Enterprise, said the company’s goal is to help financial institutions bring digital assets to market safely and at scale.
“Supporting IG Europe, a leading regulated broker, reinforces our position as the infrastructure partner of choice for institutions building digital asset capabilities,” Ladki told AlexaBlockchain.
Esteve Jane, managing director of IG Europe, said the partnership will broaden IG’s product offering across Europe.
“Our clients want crypto exposure from a platform they trust. This partnership delivers it,” Jane said.
Instead of launching standalone crypto exchanges, traditional brokers are increasingly plugging into specialist infrastructure providers. That model can reduce build-out costs, accelerate product launches and keep customer relationships inside existing regulated platforms.
For users, the appeal is straightforward.
They can access crypto markets through brands they already use for trading or investing, rather than moving assets and personal data to a separate crypto-native platform.
For brokers, the opportunity is also commercial.
Crypto can widen the product mix, improve engagement outside traditional market hours and help platforms respond to younger and more self-directed investors. As per Bitpanda’s 2025 European crypto adoption report, one in seven retail investors already hold crypto, while 12% plan to invest.
The timing also matters because Europe now has a more unified crypto rulebook.
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, or MiCA, introduced common rules for crypto-assets, including transparency, disclosure, authorization and supervision requirements.
That regulatory backdrop is making infrastructure-led partnerships more attractive for financial institutions.
A broker can focus on distribution, customer service and compliance, while an infrastructure provider handles trading rails, liquidity access, custody integrations and market data.
The Bitpanda deal does not appear to be IG Group’s first move into digital assets.
In May 2025, IG launched spot crypto trading in the United Kingdom through a partnership with Uphold, offering access to dozens of digital tokens. The company described it as part of a broader product roadmap in its 2025 annual reporting.
IG also expanded its crypto footprint through acquisitions.
In September 2025, IG Group acquired Australian crypto exchange Independent Reserve for A$178 million. The deal was aimed at expanding its digital asset services and presence in Asia-Pacific.
The Bitpanda Enterprise partnership now extends that strategy into continental Europe.
It suggests IG is not treating crypto as a single-market experiment. Instead, it is building regional access through a combination of partnerships, acquisitions and infrastructure integrations.
Bitpanda has positioned its enterprise business as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto markets.
LBBW, Deutsche Börse’s 360T, LuLu Financial Holdings, Banco BS2 and Lydia are some of the financial institutions and platforms already using its infrastructure.
Bitpanda has also worked with Coinbase to help banks and fintechs in Europe offer digital assets to customers, according to a 2023 CoinDesk report.
The trend is not limited to brokers.
In 2024, Deutsche Bank partnered with Bitpanda to process customer deposits and withdrawals for the Austrian crypto broker in Germany. Reuters framed the deal as another sign of crypto moving closer to mainstream finance, while noting that regulators remain alert to risks from deeper links between crypto and traditional markets.
These examples show a common pattern.
Traditional financial firms want exposure to digital asset demand, but many prefer not to build crypto trading, custody and liquidity systems entirely in-house.
That creates a growing market for infrastructure providers that can offer modular crypto rails under regulated conditions.
The IG Europe partnership reaffirms the fact that digital assets are being integrated into existing financial platforms.
Crypto trading is moving from specialist exchanges into multi-asset brokerages, banking apps and investment platforms.
That shift could make crypto more accessible to mainstream investors.
But it also raises the bar for infrastructure providers.
Brokers and banks will need reliable liquidity, strong market data, resilient custody arrangements and clear compliance processes. Investors will also expect the same standards of execution, transparency and platform stability they associate with traditional financial products.
The above article “Is IG Europe’s Bitpanda Deal a Sign Brokers Are Moving Deeper Into Crypto?” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/is-ig-europes-bitpanda-deal-a-sign-brokers-are-moving-deeper-into-crypto/
Read Also: MoneyGram, Pairpoint and eToro Back Midnight’s Privacy Blockchain Before Mainnet
Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.
Image Credits: Bitpanda Enterprise, IG Europe, Shutterstock, Canva, Wiki Commons
A political action committee (PAC) that claimed to “support candidates working to advance digital asset and blockchain policy in the United States” announced its picks for the 2026 election cycle, potentially influencing key races with money from the crypto industry.
In a Thursday notice, the Blockchain Leadership Fund said it had endorsed ten candidates for the 2026 US midterm elections, four in the Senate and six in the House of Representatives. Chainlink Labs and Anchorage Digital announced the launch of the PAC in March amid other committees that spent heavily in the 2024 US election cycle, like Fairshake.
The PAC’s picks included Republicans Barry Moore, Kurt Alme and Jon Husted for US Senate races in Alabama, Montana and Ohio, respectively, and Houston Gaines, Jim Kingston and Jon Bonck for House runs in Georgia’s 10th district, Georgia’s 1st district and Texas’ 38th district, respectively. It will also support Democrats Angie Craig’s run for the US Senate in Minnesota and Adrian Boafo, and Christian Menefee and Don Davis for House races in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina.
“We believe constructive bipartisan participation is critical to ensuring the US remains a global leader in financial technology and the future of finance,” said an Anchorage Digital spokesperson. “We remain committed to supporting responsible innovation and constructive policymaking that brings digital assets further into the regulatory perimeter and strengthens trust in the ecosystem.”
Funding for Blockchain Leadership Fund. Source: FEC
The committee, which is a hybrid PAC set up to allow contributions directly to candidates as well as independent expenditures, said it may announce support for other candidates “who support responsible digital asset policy” before the midterm elections in November. As of Thursday, filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) showed only $175,000 in funding for the Blockchain Leadership Fund: $100,000 from Anchorage and $75,000 from Chainlink.
Related: Georgia primary to test crypto PAC’s support for Democratic candidate
The Blockchain Leadership Fund’s endorsements came after some of its chosen candidates won their respective primaries on Tuesday. Kingston and Gaines won Republican primaries in Georgia, and Moore will go to a runoff for Alabama’s US Senate seat after failing to secure a majority of the vote.
All three already benefited from a combined $8.5 million in media spending by the Defend American Jobs PAC, a Fairshake affiliate, which also poured about $350,000 into media to support Bonck in Georgia. Another PAC affiliated with Fairshake, Protect Progress, spent more than $4.1 million to support Menefee in his Texas runoff against incumbent Al Green and more than $2 million on media for Boafo in Maryland.
While Menefee and Green are set to go head-to-head next Tuesday, money from the crypto industry is also flowing into Texas over a Republican primary for one of the state’s US Senate seats.
The Fellowship PAC, an $11 million committee funded by Cantor Fitzgerald and Anchorage Digital, reported to the FEC on Wednesday that it would be spending $500,000 to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for US Senate. The filing came more than a month after Fellowship reportedly withdrew funding for media on Paxton in response to pressure from Republican leaders toward Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, connected to Cantor Fitzgerald.
Truth Social post endorsing Ken Paxton for US Senate. Source: Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would be supporting Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn. State Representative James Talarico won a March Democratic primary, and will face off against the Republican candidate to be decided after a Tuesday runoff between Paxton and Cornyn.
Magazine: 5 tech predictions the mainstream media got horribly wrong
Pump.fun now allows coin creators to launch with USDC-paired liquidity pools instead of SOL, raising starting market caps to $4k and increasing early-stage supply costs by 67% to improve token distribution and ecosystem health.
Pump.fun, a Solana-based token launch platform, has introduced USDC-paired liquidity pools as an alternative to its existing SOL-paired bonding curve mechanism.
The move comes as SOL price changes pushed bonding curves to their limits, with starting market caps dropping to approximately $2,000 and bonding occurring at ~$30,000. USDC pairs establish a $4,000 starting market cap and $58,783 bonding threshold, designed to create more stable trading conditions and fairer token distribution for early-stage coins.
The structural change makes early-stage token supply significantly more expensive to acquire. Bonding a USDC-paired token costs ~$12,161 compared to ~$7,276 for SOL tokens—a 67% increase. Purchasing the first 30% of supply costs ~$1,682 for USDC tokens versus ~$998 for SOL tokens. Pump.fun positions this higher entry cost as a mechanism to prevent supply abuse and mitigate token upside throttling at lower market capitalizations.
The platform highlighted that USDC pairs reduce retail friction by eliminating reliance on SOL price fluctuations, which previously caused wallet balance volatility during trades. This structure was “designed with stability and more importantly a healthier ecosystem in mind,” according to the announcement.
The USDC pairs feature does not alter Pump.fun’s existing commitment to programmatic buybacks and burns of its native $PUMP token. The platform will continue directing 50% of all revenue generated from both USDC and SOL pair launches toward purchasing and burning $PUMP tokens, consistent with historical buyback operations visible on-chain.
Sources: Pump.fun Official Announcement | Solscan Example Buyback Transaction
Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard University’s endowment fund, sold all of its Ether (ETH) holdings after just one quarter, according to its Q1 2026 United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
The endowment no longer holds the $87 million in BlackRock iShares Ethereum Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares, which it held in Q4 2025, according to its Q1 2026 SEC filing.
Harvard also reduced its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) in Q1 2026, offloading about 2.3 million Bitcoin ETF shares. The endowment fund still holds more than 3 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, valued at nearly $117 million.
Harvard’s asset holdings as of Q1 2026. Source: SEC
The change in holdings follows a turbulent year for ETH, which has fallen by over 50% from the all-time high of nearly $5,000 reached in August 2025, and several high-profile departures at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the organization that oversees the ecosystem.
Related: Dartmouth endowment invests in Solana ETF, holds $14M in crypto exposure
Julian Ma and Carl Beek, two researchers at the EF, recently announced their departure from the organization, bringing the total number of departures in 2026 to eight.
Josh Stark, a longtime researcher and former project manager at the Foundation, also left the organization in April. The departures follow several organizational and leadership changes at the EF, which began in January 2025.
Source: Josh Stark
In March, the EF published a mandate outlining its goals and its focus on upholding decentralization, privacy, open-source software code and censorship resistance.
However, the mandate and the overall stance of the organization were met with mixed reactions from the crypto community.
The core pillars outlined in the EF’s mandate are “great” and “worth fighting for,” according to journalist Laura Shin, but the EF should also focus on tokeneomics and raising the price of its native asset, she added.
“The Ethereum Foundation seems to want to sit back on its laurels and act above it all when all its competitors are all getting down and dirty on the field to gain market share,” Shin said.
Magazine: Why is Ethereum Foundation selling? BTC futures warning signs: Market Moves
Bitcoin’s long-term holder (LTH) supply is approaching all-time highs. Currently, 16.3 million BTC is held by this cohort, defined as investors who have held bitcoin for at least 155 days.
LTH supply has increased from 14.12 million BTC around the time of bitcoin’s record high above $126,000 in October, to the current 16.3 million BTC. In the past month alone, LTH supply has risen by roughly 200,000 BTC.
The only other time LTH supply was higher was in January 2024, when it reached 16.4 million BTC ahead of the U.S. spot bitcoin ETF launch, one of the most anticipated events in bitcoin’s history. In the months that followed, nearly 2 million BTC was distributed by this cohort as bitcoin rallied.
Typically, during periods of price weakness or full bear market conditions, long-term holders, often viewed as the smarter money, begin increasing exposure after divesting during the previous bull market. During both the 2015 and 2019 bear markets, LTH supply increased as investors accumulated during price weakness.
However, since the ETF launch in January 2024, LTH supply has largely fluctuated between 14 million and 16 million BTC. Now, it appears to have broken out of a 2.5-year downtrend, suggesting long-term holders are once again accumulating rather than distributing during bitcoin’s depressed price levels.
Harvard Management Company slashed its BlackRock Bitcoin ETF position by roughly 43% in Q1 2026 and fully exited its Ethereum ETF stake, according to SEC filings.
Harvard University’s endowment reduced its exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs during the first quarter of 2026, according to SEC filings. Harvard Management Company cut its holdings in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by approximately 43% and completely liquidated its position in BlackRock’s spot Ethereum fund, data from the latest 13F regulatory filings show.
The endowment’s retreat from crypto spot ETFs contrasts sharply with moves by other major institutional investors. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala increased its IBIT stake by 16% to approximately $566 million during the same period, signaling divergent appetites for Bitcoin exposure among large asset holders.
The 13F filing requirement mandates that institutional investment managers with more than $100 million in assets under management disclose their holdings quarterly to the SEC, providing transparency into major portfolio shifts across equities and certain other securities. Harvard’s reduction of Bitcoin ETF exposure and complete exit from Ethereum ETF positions mark a significant de-risking of the endowment’s digital asset allocation.
The move reflects changing institutional sentiment around spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in early 2026, roughly six months after the SEC approved spot Ethereum ETF products alongside existing Bitcoin ETF offerings.
Sources: SEC EDGAR Filing | BeInCrypto | Crypto News
This article was produced with the help of AI flows.
AUSTIN, Texas – May 20th, 2026 – In celebration of Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22, Unchained, a Bitcoin financial services company founded in 2016 by Joe Kelly and Dhruv Bansal, and Bitcoin Park are hosting special screenings of “The New Rules of Bitcoin,” a short film produced in partnership with The Atlantic’s brand studio Atlantic Re:Think, in ten major US cities. The film highlights three core ideas: Bitcoin is not what you think, Bitcoin is long term thinking, and Bitcoin is true ownership. These ideas lay the groundwork for Bitcoin’s distinction from other cryptocurrencies, with its unique blend of long-term wealth preservation and direct, collaborative custody.
On May 22, 2010, a programmer paid 10,000 bitcoin for two large pizzas to be delivered to his home in the first documented real-world bitcoin transaction. An amount worth around $760 million today, highlighting Bitcoin’s incredible rise to become a mainstream global asset.
Screenings will run this week in Fort Worth, Kansas City on Friday 5/22, 7 PM, at Buffalo State Pizza Company, Chicago, Washington D.C., Portland, Nashville, Austin, Tampa Bay, and Lexington, Kentucky on Friday, 5/22, 6pm at Goodfellas Pizza. Through The New Rules of Bitcoin Roadshow, Unchained and Bitcoin Park are equipping local meetups with a free screening kit, a discussion primer, and pizza sponsorship for the first 100 meetups— bringing Bitcoin’s story to communities face-to-face, just like on the original Pizza Day.
“Bitcoin Pizza Day is a reminder that adoption happens peer-to-peer,” said Jonathan Sexton, the Chief Commercial Officer at Unchained. “Every new bitcoiner was, at some point, brought in by another bitcoiner. We made this film with The Atlantic to give the community a tool to share Bitcoin with a new audience, and to help people who are still unsure about bitcoin to give it another look. And the roadshow is the platform to help bring about the next wave of adopters.”
“Since 2022, we’ve experienced in-person meetups work to bring new people into the bitcoin ecosystem, meetup after meetup,” said Rod Roudi, co-founder of Bitcoin Park. “Bitcoin education is at the core of most meetups and this time, supported by a really cool new film. Grassroots, word of mouth is how Bitcoin spread in the first place, and it’s how it will continue to spread.”
This Pizza Day, Unchained is waiving the first trading fee on all new retirement accounts created before June 1st that move from any crypto competitor. To learn more, book a consultation with one of Unchained’s U.S.-based bitcoin experts here.
About Unchained
Unchained is a Bitcoin financial services company founded in 2016 by Joe Kelly and Dhruv Bansal and headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company built its services around collaborative custody, a multisignature structure in which clients hold their own keys while Unchained provides the financial infrastructure around them. Since its first bitcoin-backed loan in 2017, Unchained has originated more than $1 billion in loans, secured more than 100,000 BTC on its platform, and reported zero capital losses.
The company offers vaults, IRAs, a trading desk, commercial loans, inheritance planning, and its Signature advisory service for individuals and businesses. Its Bitcoin IRA is the only retirement account in the market that gives clients direct key control. In 2025, Unchained received a Wyoming trust charter through its subsidiary Gannett Trust, expanding its fiduciary and wealth advisory capabilities.
Unchained’s open-source wallet Caravan remains available to the public as a standalone tool, independent of any commercial relationship with the company. To learn more, visit unchained.com.
About Bitcoin Park
Bitcoin Park is a community-supported campus founded in 2022 with locations in Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas. Its mission is to support and accelerate the grassroots freedom tech movement by creating a home for mission-obsessed Bitcoiners, builders, and freedom fighters to work, learn, collaborate, and build.
Programming runs on three rails of freedom tech — AI, energy, and bitcoin — across meetups, workshops, and summits spanning custody & treasury, energy & mining, grassroots adoption, healthcare, payments, policy, and more.
AI Freedom Lab anchors the AI rail — Bitcoin Park’s initiative advancing sovereign, collaborative, and decentralized infrastructure so anyone can build on their own terms.
The capstone is Imagine IF, a summit of summits, held in Nashville the first week of October each year — a call to action for dreamers, builders, and believers to shape the world we want to live in, where AI, energy and converge in service of human flourishing and creative optimism. Each “Imagine IF…” talk plants a seed for what’s possible when bold imagination meets human action. To learn more, visit imagineifnashville.com
Media Contact
Melrose PR | [email protected]
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. Readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence before acting on any information presented in this article.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has parted with most of his Bitcoin holdings, saying the asset failed to deliver on its core promise as a hedge against fiat currency weakness and geopolitical turmoil.
Cuban made the remarks during an interview with Front Office Sports, where he said Bitcoin “has lost the plot.” The Shark Tank personality and former Dallas Mavericks owner had long positioned Bitcoin as a superior alternative to gold, citing its fixed supply and decentralized structure. That conviction has eroded.
“I always thought it was a better version of gold than gold,” Cuban said. “But gold just blew up and went to $5,000. Bitcoin dropped.”
The billionaire pointed to price behavior during the U.S.-Iran conflict as the moment his confidence broke. Gold surged through the period of heightened tensions, setting a record above $5,500 per ounce earlier this year.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, struggled to hold momentum. Cuban said he expected Bitcoin to rise each time the dollar fell. It did not.
“Every time the dollar dropped, Bitcoin should’ve gone up,” he said. “It’s not the hedge I expected it to be.”
Bitcoin traded near $77,500 on Thursday, down roughly 30% over the past year and 38% below its all-time high of $126,080 set in October. Gold, despite its own pullback from recent peaks, remains up more than 37% over the same 12-month stretch and commands a market cap above $31 trillion — the largest of any asset in the world.
The data does offer a counterpoint to Cuban’s critique. Since the first signs of U.S.-Iran conflict emerged in late February, Bitcoin has risen more than 16% while gold has fallen over 15%. Bitcoin’s defenders argue that framing matters — the asset’s performance depends on the window of analysis chosen.
Cuban acknowledged a distinction within the crypto space. He expressed less disappointment in Ethereum, which he sees as underpinned by real utility through decentralized finance and blockchain applications. He was categorical about meme coins and speculative tokens, calling them “garbage.”
His earlier crypto profile was broader. In 2021, he held a portfolio split roughly 60% Bitcoin, 30% Ethereum, and 10% in other assets. He was a vocal NFT enthusiast, displayed his wallets publicly, and even accepted Dogecoin as payment for Mavericks merchandise. He once predicted Dogecoin would reach $1 and function as a stablecoin.
Cuban said the crypto sector as a whole has disappointed him by failing to find mainstream utility. “It hasn’t found an application for grandma,” he said.
