4
Apr, 2025
Has Michael Saylor's Strategy built a house of cards?
Altcoin News, Bitcoin News, Crypto Analytics, Crypto Industries & Currency Updates
Strategy Inc., formerly MicroStrategy, has discarded its core product, assumed a new identity, swallowed over half a million BTC, spawned equity classes with double-digit yields, and inspired an arsenal of leveraged ETFs — a unique and significant market phenomenon.
Michael Saylor’s firm has constructed a comprehensive financial framework based around Bitcoin, tying its corporate performance directly to the cryptocurrency’s price fluctuations. As a result, Strategy’s common stock has evolved into a proxy for Bitcoin exposure, its preferred shares offer yields tied to cryptocurrency risk, and a series of leveraged and inverse ETFs now track its equity movements, all fundamentally connected to its substantial Bitcoin holdings.
Recently, there was an announcement of another purchase by MSTR (Strategy’s common equity) of close to $2 billion of BTC in one clip, inviting even more raised eyebrows and caution.
This concern is not merely because of Strategy’s bet on Bitcoin, but the market architecture which has grown around it. A parallel financial ecosystem has emerged, binding its fate to a risk asset that, as Saylor himself notes, trades 24/7. He’s championed the idea that “volatility is vitality,” suggesting that this constant motion draws attention, sustains interest, and breathes life into the entire “Strategyverse” and its related equities.
To some, this is financial innovation in its purest form: bold, unhedged, and transformative. To others, it is a fragile lattice of conviction and leverage, one black swan away from unraveling.
From MicroStrategy to Strategy: A pivot into the abyss or the vanguard?
MicroStrategy, once a staid business intelligence software provider, has been reborn as Strategy Inc., a corporate avatar synonymous with Bitcoin. The company has made an unabashed leap from offering data analytics to becoming a full-throttle Bitcoin acquisition vehicle.
The numbers speak for themselves. As of March 30, Strategy holds 528,185 BTC, acquired for approximately $35.63 billion at an average price of about $67,458 per Bitcoin. The most recent tranche of BTC in 2025 involved the acquisition of 22,048 BTC for around $1.92 billion, at an average of roughly $86,969 per coin. Year to date, Strategy has achieved a BTC yield of 11.0 percent.
This shift has transformed MSTR into a proxy Bitcoin ETF of sorts, albeit with operational leverage and corporate risk baked in. But unlike the SEC-blessed spot ETFs, MSTR offers amplified exposure: it behaves like Bitcoin, only more so due to the company’s use of leverage and financial engineering.
Read more: MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin debt loop: Stroke of genius or risky gamble?
Now, with the introduction of STRK (8% yield) and STRF (10% yield), Strategy has expanded its reach. These preferred shares offer fixed-income style returns, but their performance is deeply tethered to Bitcoin’s fate. When Bitcoin surges, yield-bearing holders cheer. They’re still promised yield when it falls, but their capital risk climbs.
Financial innovation? Yes. Structural risk? Most certainly.
Market performance of Strategy-adjacent equities (Base = 100). Source: TradingView
When indexed to 100 at the start of 2025, the performance of Strategy and related instruments demonstrates the effects of volatility and leverage in the Bitcoin-correlated financial ecosystem. As of early April 2025, MSTR has declined moderately by approximately 8%, tracking the broader downward trajectory of Bitcoin itself, which is down around 16%.
The company’s preferred shares, STRF and STRK, have slightly appreciated above their initial indexed values, reflecting investor preference for dividend stability amidst market volatility.
MSTU and MSTX have markedly underperformed, dropping around 37% to 38% from their normalized starting points, due to volatility drag and compounding losses inherent in leveraged daily reset structures.
This YTD snapshot underscores how leverage magnifies returns and the potential risks associated with short-term market movements.
Inside the Strategyverse: Bitcoin as treasury, equity as exposure
Strategy’s operating income, still derived from its legacy software business, now plays second fiddle to its crypto balance sheet.
However, the firm hasn’t just stockpiled coins; it has created a latticework of financial instruments that reflect and refract BTC price action. MSTR is no longer merely equity; it has become a high-beta Bitcoin play. STRK and STRF are yield-bearing hybrids, offering fixed returns yet functioning like risk instruments in a crypto-linked treasury experiment.
The structural concern is this: by tying every new yield product, equity issuance and debt vehicle to Bitcoin, Strategy has effectively replaced diversification with correlation. Critics argue there is no hedge here, only degrees of bullishness.
This raises the concern that a company can maintain corporate solvency and investor trust when its financial ecosystem is built atop the volatility of a single, historically unstable asset.
Leveraged and inverse products
Where there is heat, there will be leverage. The market has responded to Strategy’s gravitational pull by creating a suite of leveraged and inverse products tied to MSTR, giving retail and institutional players access to turbocharged Bitcoin exposure without holding the asset directly.
Investors seeking amplified returns in anticipation of price gains can deploy strategies such as MSTU (T Rex) or MSTX (Defiance), both offering 2x long daily returns, or MST3.L, which provides 3x long exposure listed in London.
Conversely, investors expecting price declines might choose SMST, offering 2x short exposure, or MSTS.L and 3SMI, each providing 3x short exposure listed in London.
These instruments are typically employed by traders looking for short-term directional bets and should be handled cautiously due to daily reset mechanics and volatility risks.
These are not traditional ETFs. They are complex, synthetic instruments with daily reset mechanisms and inherent decay risks. Volatility drag ensures that even in a sideways market, leveraged longs underperform. For shorts, the risk of a short squeeze, particularly in parabolic bull runs, is ever-present.
Related: Trade war puts Bitcoin’s status as safe-haven asset in doubt
In practical terms, these products allow traders to speculate on MSTR’s price with minimal capital outlay. But they also amplify misalignment. A trader betting on Bitcoin’s month-long trend might find that their 3x long MSTR ETF underperforms expectations due to compounding losses on down days.
The strategic risk here lies in mismatch: retail investors may perceive these ETFs as direct Bitcoin exposure with leverage. In reality, they are trading a proxy of a proxy, subject to corporate news, dilution, and macro shifts.
Exposure at different levels of the Strategyverse. Source: Dr. Michael Tabone
Is Strategy’s strategy conviction or leverage risk?
Between 2020 and 2025, Strategy has executed over a dozen capital raises via convertible notes, ATM equity programs and, most recently, the STRF preferred offering priced at a 10 percent yield. The March 2025 raise helped fund the latest $1.92 billion Bitcoin buy.
It is not just about buying Bitcoin. It is about the market constructing a meta-structure where every market instrument, common stock, preferred shares and synthetic ETFs feeds into the same gravitational pull. Each capital raise buys more Bitcoin. Each purchase pushes up sentiment. Each ETF amplifies exposure. This feedback loop has become the hallmark of Strategy’s financial architecture.
With each new issuance, however, dilution risk grows. STRK and STRF investors depend not only on Strategy’s solvency but also on Bitcoin’s long-term appreciation. If BTC stumbles into a prolonged bear market, can those 10% yields continue?
For investors, Strategy’s approach presents clear opportunities and risks. It offers a streamlined pathway for gaining exposure to Bitcoin through familiar financial instruments, combining elements of equity, fixed income, and derivatives. At the same time, investors must carefully consider the volatility of Bitcoin itself, the potential impacts of dilution from continuous capital raises, and the overall health of Strategy’s balance sheet.
Ultimately, the investment outcome will heavily depend on the trajectory of cryptocurrency markets, the Strategy’s financial management and evolving regulatory landscapes.
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4
Apr, 2025
Babylon users unstake $21M in Bitcoin following token airdrop
Altcoin News, Bitcoin News, Crypto Analytics, Crypto Industries & Currency Updates
More than $21 million worth of Bitcoin was unstaked from the Babylon protocol in the 24 hours after the platform’s token airdrop, according to blockchain data shared by a developer.
On April 4, Bitfeed developer Mononaut shared that in the previous 24 hours, 256 Bitcoin (BTC) had been unstaked from the staking protocol. Mononaut said that the unstaking transactions paid 1.35 BTC in fees and consumed 1.318 Megavirtualbytes (MvB) of blockspace. This means the transactions generated high fees and occupied roughly a third of an entire Bitcoin block.
The activity followed Babylon’s 600 million airdrop of its native token, BABY, which was distributed to early users and contributors.
Related: Bitcoin L2 ‘honeymoon phase’ is over, most projects will fail — Muneeb Ali
Babylon airdrops 600 million tokens to early adopters
In a previous Cointelegraph interview, Babylon co-founder Fisher Yu said that, unlike Ethereum and Solana, Bitcoin staking does not reward stakers in the chain’s native asset. Instead, they may get rewards in the form of the native token of the blockchain secured by the staked Bitcoin capital.
On April 3, the Babylon Foundation announced the details of the airdrop program for its early adopters. The protocol said the airdrop was dedicated to its Phase 1 stakers, non-fungible token (NFT) holders and developers contributing to its ecosystem.
The staking protocol said it was airdropping 600 million BABY tokens, 6% of its total supply; 30 million BABY were allocated to the protocol’s Pioneer Pass NFT holders, while 5 million BABY were slated for open-source contributors.
The rest of the tokens were to be distributed among eligible stakers who participated in the protocol’s Phase 1. This included a stake participation airdrop of 30 million BABY, a base staking reward airdrop of 335 million BABY and a bonus staking reward airdrop for Phase 2 transition of 200 million BABY.
While the platform distributed an airdrop for its early adopters, it clarified that it did not include wallet campaigns and liquid staking incentives in this airdrop event.
In response to the airdrop, crypto exchange OKX listed the BABY token and USDT pair in pre-market futures. Pre-market futures allow traders to speculate on an asset’s future price. This allows investors to trade BABY futures before the asset becomes available in spot markets.
Data platform DefiLlama shows that Babylon currently has a total value locked (TVL) of $4.29 billion. This represents 80% of the Bitcoin ecosystem’s overall TVL of $5.34 billion.
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Learn MoreBabylon users unstake $21M in Bitcoin following token airdrop
4
Apr, 2025
Arthur Hayes loves tariffs as printed money pain is good for Bitcoin
Altcoin News, Bitcoin News, Crypto Analytics, Crypto Industries & Currency Updates
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes says US President Donald Trump’s tariffs may rattle the global economy in some ways, but that same disruption could be exactly what Bitcoin needs to rally.
“Global imbalances will be corrected, and the pain papered over with printed money, which is good for BTC,” Hayes said in an April 3 X post.
Several factors contribute to Bitcoin’s potential pump
“Some of y’all are running scurred, but I LOVE TARIFFS,” Hayes said.
His comments come just a day after it was announced that the Trump administration will hit all countries with a 10% tariff starting April 5, with some countries facing even larger rates, such as China facing a 34% tariff, the European Union 20%, and Japan 24%.
Hayes explained that tariffs positively impact Bitcoin’s (BTC) price for several reasons.
Bitcoin is trading at $83,150 at the time of publication. Source: CoinMarketCap
One of them, he said, is the “weakening” of the US Dollar Index (DXY), as overseas investors continue to sell off US stocks and “bring money home.”
April 3 marked “the largest single-day point loss for the Nasdaq 100 in history,” according to the trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter.
“The index lost a total of -1060 points and came just 1.5% away from triggering the first circuit breaker since March 2020,” The Kobeissi Letter said.
“This is good for BTC and gold over the medium term.”
Hayes also said that the stringent tariff placed on China may weaken the yuan (CNY). “With a 65% effective tariff levied, China could respond by allowing CNY to weaken past 8.00,” Hayes said.
A weakening yuan may force the hand of Chinese investors to look at riskier assets such as Bitcoin to preserve their wealth.
Meanwhile, Hayes said that “we need Fed easing,” noting that the two-year Treasury yield “dumped” following the tariff announcement.
Related: Bitcoin sales at $109K all-time high ‘significantly below’ cycle tops — Glassnode
He explained this as a signal that markets expect the Federal Reserve to cut rates and potentially restart quantitative easing (QE) to offset the negative economic impact.
Fed rate cuts increase liquidity, also making riskier assets like crypto more attractive to investors.
Source: Arthur Hayes
Meanwhile, Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Invest, has long argued that Trump’s tariffs will ultimately benefit Bitcoin.
He said on Feb. 3 that in a “world of weaker dollar and weaker US rates…risk assets in the US will fly through the roof beyond your wildest imagination.”
“Bookmark this and revisit as the financial war unravels, sending Bitcoin violently higher,” Parks said on Feb. 3.
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This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
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Learn MoreArthur Hayes loves tariffs as printed money pain is good for Bitcoin