Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Could 20% of all public companies soon hold bitcoin? At least one exec thinks so.

• Stocks were mixed Friday, but it’s looking like they will still end the week higher. Here’s what else happened this week. 

• Check out the latest Forward Guidance podcast episode.

Will thousands of companies hold BTC?

While dozens of public companies currently hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, a world where thousands — yes, thousands — more follow suit is inevitable. At least according to panelists at Bitwise’s Bitcoin Standard Corporations Investor Day.   

“To everyone wearing an orange tie … it’s good to be on the team with you,” Strategy founder Michael Saylor told the Thursday crowd.

He then wanted the Pier 59 window shades lowered to prevent light from obfuscating his PowerPoint presentation. As if the bitcoin Gods heard him, they started coming down a moment later.

It was Saylor’s typical spiel, one you might have heard before: Most asset classes don’t beat monetary inflation. Bitcoin allows an Uber driver in Nigeria to outperform the smartest money managers in NYC. It’s a better version of gold that he expects to hit $13 million a coin by 2045. Yada yada yada.

Strategy owns 538,200 BTC. (Here’s, in a nutshell, how they plan to keep buying.) 

“I don’t say this to brag, because the truth is the way we did it was so brainless,” Saylor said. “Everything that all these companies do is extremely complicated — we could not create NVIDIA chips or create iPhones. Every one of you could copy me.”

But will they?

Bitwise, in a Q1 report, put the number of public companies holding BTC at 79. 

Kraken CFO Stephanie Lemmerman made perhaps the most interesting prediction. She expects about 20% of the roughly 55,000 public companies to hold BTC a couple years from now.

That’s a lot of companies. Like 11,000.

A key piece of the nebulous “broader adoption” narrative you hear plenty about, companies jumping in can move prices while offering additional endorsements. 

Semler Scientific Chair Eric Semler noted how the medical tech provider — sitting on plenty of cash — was facing challenges within its core business. The company first bought BTC last year and now owns 3,303 BTC.

While it took the old SEC months to approve Semler’s first at-the-market (ATM) offering to help it buy more bitcoin, Semler said, the new-look agency quickly greenlit its latest one.

There are possibly “thousands” of what the executive called “zombie” companies in a similar situation that would benefit from a BTC treasury strategy, he added.

Then there are those looking to go bigger. Twenty One Capital — a new entity backed by Tether and Softbank that is combining with Cantor Equity Partners — looks to launch with roughly 42,000 BTC. That would be behind only Strategy and bitcoin miner Marathon Digital. 

“There’re a lot of smaller-scale … bitcoin treasury companies, which have a role to play,” Cantor Fitzgerald’s Robert Harrington said. “But I think this market demands scale.” 

Once one of the Magnificent 7 companies starts buying BTC, many more will follow, panelists noted throughout the day. You might remember Microsoft shareholders rejected a related proposal in December. 

We know, of course, that bitcoin is volatile. An audience member asked what happens if BTC’s price falls below the price at which a company acquired it.

Establishing “board alignment” that this is a long-term play is crucial, said Fold General Counsel Hailey Lennon. She added: “Unless the fundamentals of bitcoin change, the goal is not to sell.”

Lemmerman noted too: “It’s not necessarily where you came in but where you expect [BTC] to be and what you’re forecasting.”

Fundstrat Capital CIO Tom Lee argued, too, that there’s “a lot more to the [bitcoin] treasury story” than buying a speculative asset that can appreciate. It’s a new accounting standard of sorts — “the idea that you don’t have to have cash holdings only in the US dollar.”     

Put another way, Kinetics Mutual Funds co-founder Peter Doyle said BTC is an off-ramp to “playing financial Whack-a-Mole” as governments continue to print money. That’s why he said all companies will ultimately adopt bitcoin.

Saylor “woke up” in 2020 when he realized what was happening to his cash and his business, Doyle noted. 

“They don’t feel that yet,” he added of others. “But they’re going to feel that.”

— Ben Strack

Markets Don’t Build. Builders Do.

Permissionless IV isn’t about momentum trades or macro predictions — it's about what’s already being shipped by the people rewriting crypto’s foundation.

Infra. DeFi. Consumer apps. Modular design.
This is where the next cycle gets built.

Hear from:

• Hayden Adams (Uniswap) on what it takes to build at scale.

• Jesse Pollak (Base) on bringing crypto to millions — without compromising what matters.

• Kain Warwick (Infinex) on where DeFi goes next.

• Mert Mumtaz (Helius) on what real infra looks like under pressure.

📅 June 24–26 | Brooklyn, NY

Happy Friday! US equities were mixed midway through today’s session, but they’re still poised to end the week in the green. That’s thanks to optimism that officials are nearing trade deals. 

President Trump backing off his threats to remove Fed Chair Jerome Powell didn’t hurt, either.  Here’s a recap of the economic data points that moved markets this week:

• Existing home sales in March saw a 5.9% monthly decline, data released Thursday showed. It’s the biggest drop since November 2022. The count is based on closings and likely reflects contracts signed in the first two months of the year. Analysts attribute the decline to high interest rates and decreased economic mobility. 

• Initial jobless claims for the week ended April 19 increased by 6,000 to 222,000 — coming in line with projections. First-time filers have remained in the range of 220,000 for the past two months, which is a positive sign that businesses are not engaging in widespread layoffs. 

• The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for April came in at 52.2. That’s down from 57 in March, but a slight upward revision from the advance estimate of 50.8 released earlier this month. Consumer expectations for the future are down 32% since January — a 90-day decline not seen in more than three decades.

Danny Dayan joins the show to discuss his “Doom Loop” of factors weakening the dollar and increasing inflation, why inflation expectations are unanchored, and the importance of remaining nimble in fast-moving markets. We also delve into how we’re seeing equities, rate cuts, and bonds through 2025, whether the Fed can rescue growth, why the inflation problem is worse than the growth problem, and more.