Is Strategy's Model Unraveling? What is Driving the Recent Rout and Where It Can Go From Here - Ep. 971
Michael Saylor's Strategy has not had the year it hoped for. Amid an explosion of copycats and Bitcoin price weakness, the company has seen its valuation and so-called mNAV crash.
In this special episode of Unchained, Praxos co-founder Vinny Lingham and The Benchmark Company Analyst Mark Palmer join Unchained Executive Editor Steve Ehrlich to debate Strategy's outlook.
They discuss the impact of new preferred stocks on common shareholders, the company's new cash reserve and the potential impacts of MSCI exclusion.
They also delve into what the Bitcoin digital asset treasury ecosystem could look like in the future and whether Strategy could have employed a better acquisition model.
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Host:
Steve Ehrlich, Executive Editor at Unchained
Guests:
Vinny Lingham, Co-founder of Praxos Capital
Mark Palmer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company
Links:
Unchained:
Bits + Bips: Vanguard’s Crypto U-Turn, Tether/MSTR FUD & Picking Future Winners
Bits + Bips: Why the Markets Now Have a Bullish Setup
Senate Committee Shares Bipartisan Draft on Crypto Market Structure Bill
Timestamps:
🚀 00:00 Introduction
📈 2:14 Why Mark still expects Strategy to outperform
📉 5:28 Why Vinny says Strategy preferred stocks are “vampiric”
🤔 11:45 Is Strategy's cash reserve a little too late?
👀 17:11 Debating Strategy's preferreds v. common stock
💡 19:44 How preferreds and CLARITY Act could enable Strategy to start buying Bitcoin dips as well
🫠 24:26 What happens if MSCI delists Strategy
🧠 30:34 The implications of Strategy's recent talk of selling and lending Bitcoin
⚠️ 36:25 Why it might be too late when Strategy decides to sell
🔮 39:28 How the Bitcoin DAT ecosystem could evolve as companies differentiate
🤔 44:17 Could Strategy have employed a better Bitcoin acquisition strategy?
💫 45:30 Closing thoughts on Strategy's future
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Why Twenty One Capital Is More About Volatility Than Bitcoin - Ep. 826
The race for Bitcoin supremacy just got more complicated.
Twenty One Capital, backed by Tether, SoftBank, and Cantor Fitzgerald, plans to stack as much BTC as it possibly can.
But is this new venture really about Bitcoin … or about creating a hyper-volatile stock to play market cycles?
This week on Unchained, Jeff Park of Bitwise and Mark Palmer of Benchmark join to discuss:
Why SoftBank and Tether are a “perfect match”—and why they turned to Bitcoin
How volatility, not bitcoin itself, might be the real asset investors are buying
What Cantor’s involvement says about Wall Street’s readiness for crypto
Why the launch timing matters
Whether Twenty One could repeat MicroStrategy’s mistakes
Whether these new Bitcoin vehicles are better bets than spot bitcoin or ETFs
Plus, is SoftBank getting into crypto a top signal? 👀
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Bitwise
Jeff Park, Head of Alpha Strategies at Bitwise
Mark Palmer, Senior Analyst at Benchmark
Recent coverage of Unchained on Twenty One: Twenty One Aims to Buy as Much Bitcoin as Possible. Can It Succeed?
Press Release: Tether, SoftBank Group, and Jack Mallers Launch Twenty One, a Bitcoin-native Company, Through a Business Combination With Cantor Equity Partners
Jeff Park’s post on X
Timestamps:
📰 0:00 Introduction
🚀 2:07 Why Jeff sees the Twenty One Capital launch as a huge development
🧠 6:09 How Twenty One might learn from MicroStrategy’s playbook
🏦 11:59 Risks of turning into the next Celsius, Voyager or Genesis
💸 18:52 Why Bitcoin needs income-generating activities to evolve
📊 21:17 How metrics like bitcoin per share bridge crypto and TradFi
🤝 30:16 Whether Tether’s participation makes sense
💍 34:18 Why Jeff thinks SoftBank and Tether are “a perfect match”
🚩 42:29 Is SoftBank entering crypto a top signal?
🏛️ 46:32 Why Cantor’s involvement shows Wall Street is serious
📈 50:24 Why bitcoin vehicle stocks trade at a premium
🗓️ 55:48 Why timing matters compared to MicroStrategy’s 2020 debut
🧮 1:00:06 How to decide between investing in vehicles, spot bitcoin, or ETFs
🌊 1:08:52 Whether SOL investment vehicles will have the same success as bitcoin ones
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Why Coinbase is undervalued, according to a top Wall Street analyst
Coinbase shares are down over 70% on the year, a state of affairs compounded by a rough Q1, but one leading Wall Street analyst believes Coinbase may be undervalued.
In this episode of The Scoop, Mark Palmer — managing director and fintech analyst at global financial services firm BTIG — shares why his firm is bullish on a narrative shift on Wall Street regarding Coinbase stock in the coming months.
As Palmer contended during the show:
“Coinbase has developed itself over the last ten years, largely via acquisition… and over time, this is going to become much less of a retail trading story and much more about a sort of crypto supermarket that's going to have an awful lot of different revenue drivers.”
Palmer points to the 2021 acquisition of Bison Trails as an example of Coinbase’s horizontal expansion. As Coinbase CPO Surojit Chatterjee and Bison Trails founder Joe Lallouz argued during an episode of The Scoop, the deal enhanced Coinbase’s crypto infrastructure services products, including institutional staking support.
Although Coinbase offers a wide range of crypto services, Palmer believes many Wall Street analysts tend to view Coinbase first and foremost through the lens of an exchange:
“There are a lot of folks who are covering some of the crypto exchanges and platforms that really aren't as focused on crypto — maybe they're focused on exchanges at large — and some of those distinctions and nuances, which are crucially important, get missed.”
Editor's Note: While Coinbase is a sponsor of The Scoop podcast, this episode is not an endorsement of Coinbase stock or products, nor was it produced with involvement from Coinbase. All opinions expressed by host and podcast guest are solely their own opinions and not necessarily those of The Block. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Episode 48 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Mark Palmer, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at BTIG.
Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.
About Coinbase Prime
Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.
About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.
