Institutional capital brings Bitcoin stability and status, but also systemic risk, regulatory pressure, and a creeping erosion of its core ethos.

Bitcoin’s rise with Wall Street comes at a potential philosophical cost

As of Wednesday, at least eleven IP addresses have actively tried to exploit 
the vulnerability, with thousands more addresses possibly doing reconnaissance 
work.

Hacker reconnaissance work continues on TeleMessage app vulnerability — Report

Peter Thiel-backed Bullish files for US IPO after reporting $150M in profit 
and holding $2.4B in customer assets.
The post Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bullish formally files for IPO 
appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bullish formally files for IPO

Tom Lee devoted a six-post thread on X yesterday to a single proposition: if 
companies treat Ethereum (ETH) the way MicroStrategy treats bitcoin, the token 
price need only follow the mathematics of balance-sheet absorption to reach 
roughly $30,000. Lee’s argument rests on the mechanics he says really powered 
MicroStrategy’s spectacular equity rerating. From 11 August 2020 through today 
the software company’s shares climbed from $13 to about $455, a 35-fold gain. 
Only eleven of those thirty-five turns came from bitcoin’s own rise—roughly 
$11,000 to $118,000 in the same period—while twenty-five turns were created by 
“treasury strategy,” Lee wrote, meaning repeated financings that increased BTC 
per share even faster than the coin’s spot price. Ethereum To $30,000? Lee 
lists three moves that made the template work and, in his view, will be even 
more potent for ETH: issuing new stock above net-asset value to acquire more 
tokens, exploiting token volatility to lower borrowing costs, and relying on 
convertibles or preferred shares to cap dilution. Because ether’s realised 
volatility still exceeds bitcoin’s, Lee argues the cost of debt-and-option 
structures used to lever the treasury can be driven lower still, accelerating 
token accumulation. Related Reading: Ethereum Road To $10,000: Replay Of May’s 
Playbook Predicts Another Breakout In the same thread he reposted a chart 
showing that his own vehicle, BitMine Immersion Technologies, purchased four 
times more notional value in its first week of activity ($1 billion in ETH) 
than MicroStrategy bought in its first week of bitcoin purchases back in 2020. 
BitMine’s numbers illustrate the scale. A regulatory filing and follow-up 
press release on 17 July confirmed the company now holds 300,657 ETH—just over 
$1 billion at the time of publication—after closing a $250 million private 
placement on 8 July. Lee, who chairs BitMine’s board, said the firm is “well 
on our way to acquiring and staking five per cent of the overall ETH supply.” 
The second-largest treasurer is SharpLink Gaming, chaired by Ethereum co- 
founder Joseph Lubin. On 17 July the company updated its SEC prospectus to 
increase the stock it can sell from $1 billion to $6 billion, saying proceeds 
will fund additional ETH purchases. SharpLink had already raised $413 million 
between 7 and 11 July and disclosed 280,706 ETH on its books as of 13 July, 
all but a few hundred of which are staked for yield. Related Reading: Ethereum 
Could Shoot Above $4,000 This Week, Predicts Analyst Bit Digital rounds out 
the trio. After a $172 million underwritten share sale on 7 July and the 
liquidation of 280 bitcoin, the Nasdaq-listed miner reported a treasury of 
100,603 ETH and declared its intention to become “the pre-eminent ETH holding 
company in the world,” according to chief executive Sam Tabar. Taken together, 
the three firms now control roughly 682,000 ETH, or about half a per cent of 
the circulating supply, and each has active authorisations to issue more 
equity or debt expressly for ether accumulation. Lee insists the reflexive 
loop this creates—higher share prices providing ever-cheaper capital that buys 
still more token per share—can compress the time it takes for price to capture 
scarcity. Crypto analyst DCInvestor, responding to Lee’s thread, distilled the 
mathematics into a range: “Tom Lee basically calling for like $30-80K ETH. And 
some of you think we are gonna stop $1-2K after last cycle’s all-time high.” 
Ether changes hands today near $3,600. An eight-fold move to $30,000 would 
merely replicate the multiple that bitcoin logged between MicroStrategy’s 
first treasury purchase and its 2021 peak. The difference, Lee argues, is that 
MicroStrategy spent four years proving the model; Ethereum treasuries have 
taken less than two months to raise their first few billion dollars. Featured 
image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Tom Lee Predicts $30,000 Per Ethereum As Treasury Frenzy Begins

The growing popularity of Bitcoin ETFs and treasury companies is reshaping how 
investors hold Bitcoin — raising questions about the core principle of &#8220;not 
your keys, not your coins.&#8221;

The rise of ETFs challenges Bitcoin’s self-custody roots

Block will join the S&amp;P 500 on July 23, sending shares up over 10% in after- 
hours trading amid rising investor confidence.
The post Block surges 10% as it joins the S&amp;P 500 index appeared first on 
Crypto Briefing.