💰 $111B stockpile

Bitcoin is a fundamental technology. You can tell by the adoption curve. 

It was regular people who first picked up personal computers in the late 1970s. It took more than a decade for companies to adopt PCs for office tasks like spreadsheets. Governments came on board years later.

Same with mobile phones. Texting and calling were big with wealthy and younger people, before companies realised they could improve communication and efficiency, leading to the golden era of the BlackBerry. 

It was only in the 2010s that many government agencies would appreciate what smartphones could offer. The pattern can also be observed in how internet usage developed, as well the spread of social media.

As it turns out, Bitcoin is no different.

Stacking sats?

Chances are you’d be buying alongside any one of the dozen or so companies that are actively accumulating right now.

An estimate of the number of bitcoins held by corporate treasuries, both private and publicly-listed, has today reached a new all-time high: 1,082,164 BTC ($110.8 billion), according to BitcoinTreasuries.

It’s equivalent to almost 5.5% of the current circulating supply. And if we don’t include Satoshi’s million or so coins, or the estimated 1.57 million BTC believed to be lost forever, corporate treasuries are actually holding 6.25%.

That’s four times more bitcoins on corporate balance sheets than three years ago, as Terra/Luna was driving a wrecking ball through crypto markets. 

Most of that growth is coming from public companies, led by Strategy of course, but Metaplanet, Semler Scientific and Tether are proving to be as ravenous as Saylor’s firm was in 2020. 

The Jack Mallers-led XXI is on track to do the same, starting off with 31,500 BTC ($3.2 billion) disclosed late last month.

Tether now holds over 25% more bitcoin than it did last October: 100,521 BTC ($10.3 billion) as of its latest disclosure. 

Metaplanet holds 700% more coins across the same period, today reaching 7,800 BTC ($800 million). Semler has meanwhile tripled its stack to 3,808 BTC ($390.1 million).

Some of the data on BitcoinTreasuries may be a little screwy (does Block.one really still have 164,000 BTC, worth $16.8 billion?), but that’s besides the point.

The rate at which businesses are adopting bitcoin to reinforce treasuries (and copy the Strategy acquisition playbook) has, in turn, advanced Bitcoin to its intermediate phase.

And just like the internet, mobile phones and social media, businesses were significantly slower to adopt Bitcoin than the public. It was now a decade ago, in 2015, that individuals in Venezuela and Argentina adopted bitcoin to protect their wealth from hyperinflation.

A handful of governments have clearly developed a keen understanding of the technology adoption curve and acted accordingly. We all know what comes next.

— David

On May 19, 1997, in the heat of the Crypto Wars, legendary Cypherpunk Tim May told the mailing list not to expect him at any physical meetings any time soon.

“A gathering of ‘reputed information terrorists, who have openly discussed assassination markets, C4 explosives, and the destabilization of democratic governments’ would be too ripe a target for clowns like Reno, Freeh, and Kallstrom,” he wrote, referring to key FBI players in the US government’s war on encryption.

May was an infamous homesteader and relayed many concerns over his lifetime, including some that raised eyebrows. For what it’s worth, another subscriber, Slashdot editor Chris DiBona, was less worried.

“If the FBI wants to come raid a Cypherpunk meeting and arrest me, they should be ready for a law suit that will make thier heads spin. I mean can you think of anything more protected by the first amendment than a bunch of hobbiest getting together to discuss math, for christs sakes?”

“I know a couple of lawyers who would drool at the chance to defend someone who is lily white and is arrested for meeting and discussing prime numbers.”

— David

• Bitcoin stopped $2,268 short of all-time high earlier this morning — a 2.1% difference.

• Coinbase has officially entered the S&P 500. Could’ve picked a better day, stocks are down in response to Moody’s downgrade of US debt.

• Jack Dorsey reignited debate over what to call bitcoin’s smallest unit: bits or sats. A bitcoin is a coin of bits.