Scalability Context

As far as I know, most academic articles on Bitcoin scalability focus on the limits to transactions per second. This appears to be greater concern than the upper limit on the number of nodes.

Another issue that we think is more careful about is the size of blockchain data that all full nodes need to store and handle. See “Shards” and more.

Maximum node

Put your internet bandwidth and more aside. One limitation of the number of nodes is that if the network-wide gossip protocol delay is close or more than the 10 minute block interval, the network is likely to be split naturally. I think an indicator of an approach to this could be an increase in the number of small-scale re-growings.

I think this issue depends heavily on the maximum number of hops between two nodes (or important groups of nodes) where one hop communicates with one bitcoin node (or a key group of nodes) (each can intrude in many IP routing hops.

I think this is probably related to the concept of the “version era” of information within gossip networks. There are many articles on this more general issue (example)

Data Sultput probably has no constraint on the number of nodes, as the data throughput of synchronized nodes is not dependent on the network size. Overhead at about 4 MB per 10 minutes. In the case of SPV nodes, they can form a majority in large networks.

Note that the above is speculation and not quantified.

Wall Street increased its Bitcoin exposure in the second quarter, adding positions as well as spot Bitcoin exchange sales funds (ETF) Also, new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission say that US stocks are closely tied to cryptocurrency prices. (seconds).

Brevan Howard almost doubles BlackRock’s position on iShares Bitcoin Trust (go) According to the securities application, in the second quarter. The macro-focused hedge fund held 37.9 million shares at the end of June, at the end of March, with approximately 21.5 million shares in March.

The shares are worth more than $2.6 billion based on IBit’s closing price on June 28th, and Brevan Howard became one of IBIT’s biggest institutional owners, increasing its position to $3.3 billion in Ibit and Fidelity’s wise origin Bitcoin Trust. (FBTC). The banking giant also owned an iShares Ethereum Trust worth $489 million (Eta)according to the submission.

Ownership of Goldman’s ETF is not a direct bet by the trading desk at the price of Bitcoin. Rather, it is more likely to represent the position held by Goldman Sachs Asset Management on behalf of the client.

However, Brevan Howard, best known for his macro trading, has been active in the Crypto space for a long time, running a dedicated digital asset division called BH Digital. The unit manages billions of assets and invests in blockchain infrastructure, decentralized finance and related technologies.

Harvard, Wells Fargo, etc.

Other major IBIT investors include Harvard University, which reported $1.9 billion in ETF shares, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadara Investment Company, which continues to hold $681 million.

When it comes to US banks, Wells Fargo almost quadrupled its IBIT holdings to $160 million from $26 million in the last quarter, maintaining a $200,000 stake in the grayscale Bitcoin fund. (GBTC).

Canter Fitzgerald also increased its holdings to more than $250 million, increasing its shares in crypto-related stocks, including its strategy. (MSTR)Coinbase (coin) And Robin Hood (Food)especially.

Trading company Jane Street has revealed that it holds $1.46 billion in stake in IBIT. (TSLA) $1.4 billion. We increased our MSTR stake while reducing our FBTC holdings.

Spotting Bitcoin ETFs like IBIT, which launched in January, allows investors to get in touch with the price of Bitcoin without directly holding cryptocurrency. Its structure provides traditional institutions with the means to participate in the crypto market through familiar securities and custody arrangements.

Norway buys more

For some overseas entities, it is easier to be exposed to Bitcoin through US listed companies that have a large amount of BTC on their balance sheets.

This is an approach that Norwegian sovereign wealth funds are being tackled with investors backed by several other European states, choosing to stocks in crypto adjacent companies rather than directly retaining the crypto.

Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim)According to a new memo from the K33 survey, the entities that manage the investment sector of the Norwegian Central Bank and the country’s $2 trillion pension funds currently hold 7,161 BTC indirectly. That figure is up 192% from 2,446 BTC a year ago and 87% from 3,821 BTC held at the end of 2024.

The biggest part of the exposure, 3,005 BTC, comes through strategic stocks. The rest spreads to companies like Marathon Digital, Coinbase, Block and Metaplanet. K33 also counted GME (GameStop) And some small holdings that contribute to the total.

Still, exposure remains small in context. Norwegian funds own stocks in thousands of companies across the global market, and the value of their Bitcoin-related investments is only a small fraction of their total holdings. At its current market price of $117,502 per BTC, the fund’s 7,161 BTC is approximately $841 million, or less than 0.05% of its $2 trillion portfolio.

The sudden increase over the past year could indicate an increased institutional amenity with the asset class, but that is not a major strategic change.

These changes took place alongside relatively muted price action, as Bitcoin hovered between $101,000 and $110,000 throughout June before stabilizing near $107,000 at the beginning of July.

While the reduction in futures and options OI might suggest waning investor interest, a closer look at the data indicates strategic de-risking and rotation into new quarterly positioning rather than outright bearish conviction.

Bitcoin futures open interest started June near $72.5 billion and peaked at $77.7 billion on June 10, right alongside Bitcoin’s monthly high of $110,200. This climb shows a short-lived increase in speculative exposure as traders positioned for further upside after the rally in May.

However, optimism faded quickly, and the market experienced a sharp downside wick on June 15. This pushed Bitcoin below $104,000 in a matter of minutes, triggering a wave of long liquidations. Total futures OI plunged to $69.6 billion (a 10% drop in five days), while spot prices declined around 4%. This marked the first major deleveraging of the month and revealed the fragility of overextended long positions.

A similar pattern followed on June 23 as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East prompted risk-off flows. Bitcoin briefly dropped below $102,000, and futures OI fell again, this time from $72.9 billion to $68.3 billion. The reaction wasn’t as sharp as mid-month, but it showed how sensitive leveraged traders are to macro events. Binance’s share of open interest remained steady between $11.3 billion and $12.3 billion, implying that the largest swings came from offshore venues and CME.

Even as prices recovered toward $107,000 by the end of the month, OI never returned to its early June highs. By July 2, total futures OI stood at $69.5 billion, down roughly 10% from the June peak. This drop in leverage despite price stability indicates we now have a structurally “cleaner” market that’s less prone to forced liquidation cascades.

In contrast to the zigzagging futures landscape, Bitcoin options open interest steadily climbed throughout most of June, rising from $38.2 billion on June 1 to a record $51.1 billion by June 27. This reflected an active environment for options structuring, driven in part by the quarterly expiry of Deribit and CME contracts scheduled for the last trading days of Q2.

On June 28, nearly 40% of all outstanding options contracts expired. Deribit alone saw 141,000 BTC in notional exposure roll off its books. Bitcoin’s options OI dropped from $51.1 billion to $35.2 billion in a single day, a 31% reduction. However, despite the scale of the expiry, Bitcoin’s price barely moved, holding steady around $107,300. This decoupling between notional and price reinforces the idea that this was a mechanical adjustment, not a directional event.

It was one of the cleanest quarterly expiries in a while. The low volatility surrounding the event suggested that most positioning had already been adjusted in advance, with limited need for dealers to aggressively hedge into expiry. Post-expiry, options OI rebounded slightly to $35.2 billion by July 2, indicating traders were in the early stages of repositioning for the third quarter.

June’s futures and options cleanup had a visible effect on market structure. Implied volatility remained relatively subdued, even as realized volatility edged lower. This trend, combined with a flattening CME futures basis, down from roughly 9.5% annualized on June 10 to around 6% by June 30, reflects a lower-risk profile in the derivatives market heading into the third quarter.

Much of this repricing appears driven by institutional flows. CME saw large futures rolls throughout the final week of June as traders shifted out of BTCM25 (June expiry) into BTCU25 (September expiry). Meanwhile, on Deribit, call-heavy positioning into late June was replaced by a more balanced skew, with an increase in open interest around $110,000-$120,000 strikes for July and September.

The result of this unwinding and expiry is a market better positioned for directional movement. Bitcoin has entered July with a spot price largely unchanged from mid-June but with far less derivative baggage. Futures OI is down more than $8 billion from the highs, while options OI is $16 billion below the June peak.

The lack of price impact during these drops, especially the massive June 28 options expiry, suggests that traders remain engaged but more disciplined. A lighter, more responsive market opens the door for sharper moves if we see other major catalysts in the third quarter. Whether that results in a breakout above the ATH or a return to volatility compression will depend on external triggers. But after a volatile June, the deck has been cleared for the next leg of the derivatives cycle.

The post End of the quarter wipes out billions from Bitcoin open interest appeared first on CryptoSlate.

From Michael Saylor to David Bailey, Anthony Pompliano to Jack Mallers, and everyone in between, there’s a rising tide of executives buying bitcoin for their corporate treasuries. Large companies and Wall Street are vacuuming up billions of dollars’ worth of BTC every week, yet its price remains relatively untouched. One Bitcoiner took to Twitter to ask why and received more than 1.3K replies. Here’s the best:

“Can anyone explain to me why companies are buying billions of dollars of bitcoin every week and the price is virtually unchanged over the last 6 months?”

Bitcoin Cam’s question clearly reflects the broader sentiment of Crypto Twitter, receiving over 800,000 views in a few hours and more than 1,300 replies. Even Bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff chimed in with his 2 cents:

“The whales who already own a bunch of Bitcoin are selling to these buyers to cash out their huge gains.”

But the best reply came from SightBringer, who provides signal-bearing intelligence across macro, crypto, and capital. He said:

“They’re buying billions and the price isn’t moving because this isn’t a market anymore – it’s a controlled ignition chamber.”

Then he broke it down point by point:

1. ETF flows are real. Sovereigns and institutions are accumulating cold bitcoin.

Basically, large investors like BlackRock and Fidelity are buying real bitcoin through special funds called ETFs. This isn’t just pretend money; these are actual coins being tucked away for the long term.

In 2025, public companies bought a record number of bitcoins, and these ETFs are seeing billions in new money come in. The coins are being taken off exchanges, so fewer are left for everyone else to buy or sell.

2. Exchange liquidity is fake. Most trading happens on fractional reserves of “paper bitcoin” – IOUs, not actual coins.

Here, SightBringer explains that most trading on big crypto exchanges doesn’t actually move real coins. Instead, it’s just “paper bitcoin” (IOUs or promises to deliver bitcoin later).

This means there’s a lot of trading, but not much real bitcoin changing hands. If everyone tried to take their coins out at once, things could get messy (think Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in 2023). This makes the market seem bigger than it really is.

3. Whales are rotating old supply out silently. Early miners and OTC wallets are feeding demand without triggering price – precisely to keep it low during transition.

Echoing Schiff’s reply, in point 3, SightBringer means that large holders, known as whales, aren’t selling their old coins on the open market. Instead, they’re selling quietly to new buyers or moving coins to private wallets.

This keeps the price from jumping around. In April alone, Glassnode revealed that whales had absorbed more than 300% of the newly mined bitcoin supply, drastically reducing the coins available to everyone else.

4. Volatility is being suppressed. BlackRock, Fidelity, and macro funds need price stability to finalize compliance, settlement rails, and balance sheet integration.

Big companies and funds don’t like wild price swings. They need stable prices to make sure everything works smoothly. BlackRock and others are even saying bitcoin is less volatile than before, which is good for them, as the asset becomes more credible to investors.

5. The real breakout is being delayed by design. Because once this thing moves, it won’t come back. It becomes untouchable.

SightBringer maintains that the market is being manipulated, with the BTC price being held back on purpose. When it finally breaks out, it could go exponentially higher, and it might not come back down. That’s why the big players are getting ready now, so they’re in the best position when the real move happens.

“The real question isn’t “why isn’t it moving?” It’s: Who’s making sure it doesn’t and why?”

Mentioned in this article

The Federal Reserve just bought $43.6 billion in US treasuries in the span of a week, sparking concerns that a quiet quantitative easing operation is underway.

New filings show the Fed purchased $8.8 billion in 30-year bonds on May 8th via its System Open Market Account (SOMA) – a move that followed a $34.8 billion purchase earlier that same week.

The move has triggered allegations that “stealth QE” has arrived, with a MarketWatch Op-Ed from Charlie Garcia calling the move “monetary policy on tiptoes.”

The Fed denies the claims, and has long stated such purchases are routine reinvestments of maturing securities to adjust the money supply and influence interest rates to meet its targets.

The Fed’s buying spree follows a major Treasury sell-off from China.

New numbers from the Treasury Department show China sold $18.9 billion in US bonds in March, while most other countries increased their holdings.

China now holds $765.4 billion in US Treasuries and is in third place behind the UK and Japan, which hold $779 billion and $1.13 trillion, respectively.

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What just happened? The Trump administration has announced a significant shift in the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, eliminating the preference for fiber Internet infrastructure. This change is expected to redirect substantial funding towards non-fiber technologies, such as Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, potentially allocating between $10 billion and $20 billion to such providers.

This move marks a departure from the Biden administration’s approach, which emphasized fiber-optic networks as the most future-proof and reliable option for broadband deployment.

The BEAD program was authorized by Congress in November 2021, with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) developing rules under the Biden administration. These rules prioritized end-to-end fiber-optic architecture due to its ability to be easily upgraded by replacing equipment at the ends of fiber-optic facilities.

This approach also supports the deployment of 5G and other advanced wireless services, which rely heavily on fiber for backhaul. However, the Trump administration has criticized these rules as overly restrictive and ineffective.

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has been vocal about the need for change, stating that the program has not connected anyone to the Internet due to “woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations.”

The Trump administration is adopting a “tech-neutral” approach to provide Internet access at the lowest cost to taxpayers. This shift includes exploring ways to cut government red tape that slows down infrastructure construction to deliver high-speed Internet access efficiently and effectively.

The decision to end the fiber preference has been criticized by Democrats and advocacy groups. House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr., accused Republicans of undermining efforts to deploy reliable and affordable broadband, labeling Elon Musk as a “grifter.”

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society expressed concerns that the shift could leave millions with slower and less reliable Internet, as fiber broadband offers faster speeds, higher bandwidth, and symmetrical upload and download speeds, making it ideal for demanding applications like telehealth and gaming.

Despite these concerns, the Trump administration is moving forward with changes, aiming to reduce bureaucratic hurdles and expedite infrastructure construction. Republicans are also proposing legislative changes to eliminate what they see as burdensome conditions imposed by the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, Starlink could benefit significantly from these changes, potentially gaining access to substantial funding through both the BEAD program and other federal initiatives. The Federal Communications Commission could also direct more money to Starlink through universal service programs, although the FCC is not directly involved in the BEAD program.

The shift in policy has also raised questions about conflicts of interest, particularly given Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Recent reports suggest that Starlink could take over a $2 billion contract with the Federal Aviation Administration, although SpaceX has denied seeking to replace existing contracts. The FCC’s newly appointed chairman, Brendan Carr, has expressed support for Starlink, potentially paving the way for future grant awards.