Ripple USD just took a giant leap toward mainstream financial dominance, with institutional backing and regulatory clarity setting the stage for explosive global adoption. RLUSD Highlights Regulatory Trust in Global Finance Evolution Stablecoins are gaining ground as trusted financial instruments, with major custodial partnerships pointing to a broader institutional shift in how digital assets are […]

Ripple’s RLUSD Boosts Transparency and Compliance, Signals Finance Shift

The trading platform is facing mounting regulatory pressure, landing under the 
microscope of another watchdog just days after a separate investigation. 
According to a Thursday press release, the Florida Attorney General’s office 
has launched an investigation into Robinhood’s cryptocurrency business. …

Robinhood hit with second probe over misleading crypto marketing

The Smarter Web Company has added 275 BTC to its treasury, pushing total 
holdings to 1,275 BTC as Bitcoin hit a new all-time high. The Smarter Web 
Company, a London-listed Bitcoin treasury company, announced on July 11 the 
purchase of…

Smarter Web Company boosts Bitcoin holdings to 1,275 BTC as BTC hits new ATH

A sweeping new research report by Ben Harvey and Will Clemente III, 
commissioned by market maker Keyrock, projects that Bitcoin could reach 
$160,000 by the end of 2025—but only if the capital structure supporting 
Bitcoin Treasury Companies (BTC-TCs) remains intact. The research, “BTC 
Treasuries Uncovered: Premiums, Leverage, and the Sustainability of Proxy 
Exposure,” dissects the capital structures, market impact, and debt profiles 
of the fast-growing cohort of “Bitcoin Treasury Companies” (BTC-TCs), led by 
Strategy (the renamed MicroStrategy). The Impact Of Bitcoin Treasury Firms 
Harvey and Clemente open with a startling figure: “Bitcoin Treasury Companies 
have accumulated around 725,000 BTC, equivalent to 3.64 percent of the entire 
BTC supply.” Much of that hoard sits with Strategy’s 597,000-coin trove, but 
the analysts track more than a dozen follow-on players—from Marathon Digital 
and Metaplanet to newer entrants such as Twenty One Capital—whose combined 
exposure now outstrips US spot-ETF holdings by more than half. Related 
Reading: Bitcoin Is One Candle Away From $141,300 Breakout, Chart Master Warns 
Yet the report’s headline forecast is explicitly conditional. Keyrock’s bull 
case assigns a thirty-percent probability that global liquidity remains flush, 
institutional demand accelerates, and Bitcoin rallies fifty percent past 
today’s levels, “pushing BTC to over $160 k by EOY.” That outcome rests on the 
fragile flywheel of net-asset-value premiums: BTC-TC equities still trade, on 
average, at a seventy-three-percent premium to the dollar value of the coins 
they custody. Those premiums let boards issue new shares “accretively,” 
convert sentiment into fresh BTC, and—crucially—service the $33.7 billion in 
debt and preferred stock the sector has rung up to fund its buying binge. No 
company illustrates the reflexive loop better than Strategy. Since August 
2020, Michael Saylor has driven Bitcoin-per-share (BPS) up eleven-fold, an 
annualized sixty-three-percent run rate that dwarfs the 6.7 percent CAGR 
needed to justify the firm’s current ninety-one-percent NAV premium. “If an 
investor believes that Strategy’s BPS growth rates will hold long-term,” the 
authors contend, “holding MSTR would be far more beneficial in BTC terms than 
holding spot BTC.” Still, that calculus assumes the equity premium stays 
afloat; if sentiment turns, dilution flips from accretive to punitive 
overnight. Debt maturities pose the next stress point. BTC-TCs owe a wall of 
convertible notes in 2027-28. Harvey and Clemente calculate that Strategy 
alone has issued $8.2 billion of the cohort’s $9.5 billion in debt; Marathon 
follows at $1.3 billion. Most instruments carry zero-to-low coupons and 
conversion prices well below current share levels, but a deep Bitcoin drawdown 
could drive equities under those strikes, forcing firms to repay in cash or 
refinance at far harsher terms. “Since many BTC-TC valuations are tightly 
correlated to Bitcoin price performance,” the authors warn, “a sharp BTC 
drawdown could drive down equity value, increasing the risk that conversion 
thresholds are breached.” Related Reading: Last Time This Happened, Bitcoin 
Jumped $50,000—Is History Repeating? The report splits the universe into cash- 
flow-generative names such as Metaplanet, CoinShares, and Boyaa 
Interactive—each with eight or more quarters of runway—and capital-dependent 
players like Marathon, Nakamoto, and DeFi Technologies, which could face 
dilution above three percent per quarter merely to stay solvent if premiums 
persist. Should those premiums compress, equity issuance “becomes purely 
dilutive,” and treasury companies could be forced to sell Bitcoin, undermining 
the proxy thesis that justifies their existence. The Base Case Keyrock’s base 
case, to which it assigns the highest probability, envisions Bitcoin finishing 
2025 around $135,000, with NAV premiums cooling into a thirty-to-sixty-percent 
range. In that environment, well-managed treasuries still out-perform spot, 
but the leverage trade loses its shine. The bear scenario—assigned the lowest 
but non-trivial odds—combines a twenty-percent Bitcoin drawdown with a glut of 
new treasury listings that flood the market with supply. In that world, 
premiums vanish, refinancing windows slam shut, and “the entire investment 
case for BTC-TCs comes under pressure.” Harvey and Clemente do not dismiss the 
BTC-TC model; rather, they frame it as a high-beta overlay that amplifies both 
the upside and the solvency risk inherent in Bitcoin itself. They credit 
Saylor’s “Bitcoin yield” thesis—using premium-funded share issuance to 
compound coin holdings—as a demonstrably effective strategy to date, but 
caution that it relies on a delicate equilibrium of bullish sentiment, cheap 
capital, and meticulous execution. “The premium to NAV is of the utmost 
importance here,” the study concludes, “assuming a BTC-TC doesn’t have a core 
operating business that can cover debt payments, or is entirely free of debt 
payments altogether.” Whether Bitcoin can sprint to $160,000 by 31 December 
hinges less on hash-rate projections or macro modeling than on the continued 
faith of equity investors willing to pay a dollar-fifty for a dollar of 
embedded BTC. If those investors blink—if premiums fade or convertible 
maturities collide with a broad risk-off shift—the leverage that has propelled 
treasury companies to date could flip, turning “one of the best performing 
equities on the planet” into the market’s most crowded exit. For now, 
Keyrock’s research leaves readers with a simple countdown: hold the line, and 
the path to price discovery remains intact; lose it, and the proxy trade could 
unwind long before the New Year’s fireworks. At press time, BTC traded at 
$117,788. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Research Predicts $160,000 Bitcoin By EOY—If Treasury Firms Hold

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group is reportedly partnering with Circle Internet 
Group to integrate its USDC stablecoin into Ant&#8217;s blockchain platform. A 
Strategic Move Amid China&#8217;s Stablecoin Push Chinese fintech firm Ant Group is 
reportedly collaborating with global digital asset platform Circle Internet 
Group to incorporate its USDC stablecoin onto the Jack Ma–backed company’s 
blockchain […]

Jack Ma-Backed Ant Group to Integrate Circle’s USDC Stablecoin, Report Says

Ethereum has surpassed $3,000 in value, following the ETH Foundation 
transferring a total of 21,000 ETH in the past two months to its internal 
Gnosis Safe Proxy address. According to data from crypto.news, ETH (ETH) 
touched on a new high…