KindlyMD, a Nasdaq-traded health-care firm that recently merged with bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto, said it plans to raise as much as $5 billion in equity to expand its Bitcoin (BTC) reserves.

The company filed a shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an at-the-market stock program, allowing it to issue shares gradually at prevailing prices.

Proceeds will fund additional Bitcoin purchases and may also support acquisitions of other businesses or technologies.

First treasury purchase

KindlyMD launched its Bitcoin reserve strategy earlier this month, disclosing its first purchase of roughly 5,744 bitcoin valued at $635 million.

The company said future acquisitions will depend on market conditions and corporate priorities.

Following the announcement, NAKA shares slid 12% to $8.07, pressured by the new equity plan and Bitcoin’s recent decline.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has fallen more than 10% since topping $123,000 in mid-August. As of press time, BTC was trading at $111,250, based on CryptoSlate data.

Part of a larger trend

KindlyMD’s pivot adds to a growing list of publicly traded firms adopting Bitcoin as a balance-sheet asset.

The strategy was popularized by Michael Saylor and his firm Strategy, which has accumulated more than 600,000 BTC in recent years. Its success has caused several companies, from payment firms to smaller corporates, to seek to diversify reserves via Bitcoin.

Advocates argue that Bitcoin can serve as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation, though critics warn its volatility poses significant risks.

For KindlyMD, the move highlights how companies outside of finance are increasingly blurring the line between corporate strategy and digital asset investment, deepening exposure to crypto market swings while potentially reshaping how treasury management is viewed in traditional industries.

Mentioned in this article

The blockchain abstraction layer continues to close the gap between traditional and DLT markets.

This latest feature will bring tokenized US equities and ETFs to the blockchain, making access to these assets easier and available around the clock.

Advancing The Tokenization Market

Chainlink, a bridge between real-world data and blockchain, shared yesterday about a flagship product – Data Streams for the US Equity and ETF market. Several DeFi protocols are already on board, such as GMX, GMX Solana, and Kamino.

Already integrated into leading equities and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the Data Streams provide real-time pricing for traditional finance (TradFi) assets, including CRCL, QQQ, NVDA, MSFT, and many more, across 37 blockchain networks.

Developers can now access live, contextual data for these markets directly on-chain, enabling tokenized stock trading, perpetual futures, and synthetic ETFs, all backed by institutional dependability. The advancement also brings a roster of novel features, such as market hours enforcement, staleness detection, and high-frequency pricing.

“With Chainlink Data Streams’ fast, reliable, and context-rich market data, production-ready tokenized financial products tied to U.S. equities and ETFs can now be launched directly on-chain.

This represents a significant leap forward for tokenized markets, closing a critical gap between traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure.

We’re excited to be collaborating with Kamino and GMX, two forward-thinking DeFi teams whose work continues to accelerate the convergence of TradFi and DeFi.” – Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs.

To establish a reliable on-chain exchange for these assets would require fast and high-integrity market data. Crypto markets operate 24/7, whereas traditional ones do not, and they can additionally suffer from occasional interference, which poses a challenge for non-stop, decentralized applications (DApps). This can include price gaps, inaccuracies in off-market data, and outages.

How Will it Work

Chainlink Data Streams will aggregate input from multiple primary and backup data sources, thereby enhancing uptime and reliability. This aggregated data will then be processed by decentralized oracle networks (DONs) and transmitted on-chain via a structured schema.

Each data point will be timestamped, allowing protocols to identify the differences between current and historical prices, pause automatically during market off-hours, and implement real-time risk management.

This data schema is designed for advanced DeFi composability, as it provides structured pricing that aids in accurate liquidations, trade halts, strategy adjustments, and collateral valuation. It will also be able to distinguish between real-world prices taken from traditional, open markets and prices of tokenized stocks available 24/7. This can open the door for arbitrage opportunities and risk management strategies.

Some use cases for the products enabled by the Data Streams are perpetuals, lending/borrowing, vault protocols, brokerage platforms, and more.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public holder of Bitcoin, reported no Bitcoin buys last week despite the asset seeing volatility after breaking all-time highs in mid-July.

Strategy’s Bitcoin (BTC) holdings remained unchanged at 607,770 BTC as the company opted not to buy more BTC last week, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday.

The price of Bitcoin climbed from about $118,000 to more than $119,000 over the course of the week, despite Strategy’s inactivity and a reported 80,000 BTC sale by an early investor on Friday, according to data from CoinGecko.

The latest missed purchase marks the second time in July that Strategy has reported no weekly BTC acquisitions, following a similar absence of buys in the first week of the month.

Strategy BTC buys drop 39% month-over-month

The latest pause highlights a broader slowdown in Strategy’s July buying activity. The company reported two weekly Bitcoin acquisitions in July: a 4,225 BTC purchase on July 14 and another 6,220 BTC purchase on July 21.

Its BTC buys in July were down 39% from the 17,075 BTC purchased in June.

The company bought even more Bitcoin in the previous months, reporting purchases of 26,695 BTC in May and 25,370 BTC in April.

Related: Strategy launches Bitcoin stock pegged at $100 to increase treasury

Prior to skipping the buy in the first week of July, Strategy previously reported no buys in the first week of April.

Strategy upsized STRC offering last week

The slowdown in Strategy’s Bitcoin buying came as the company upsized its Series A perpetual stretch preferred stock (STRC) offering to $2.521 billion from an initially planned $500 million on Friday.

With the STRC priced at $90, the issuance and sale are scheduled to settle on Tuesday, subject to customary closing conditions.

Similar to four other Strategy offerings, including the Series A perpetual strike preferred stock (STRK), the new STRC program is an equity-raising mechanism designed to allow the company to gradually sell newly issued shares to buy more Bitcoin.

On Wednesday, Strategy co-founder Saylor took to X to refer to STRC as one of the four pillars of the “Bitcoin defense department.”

Magazine: Bitcoin inheritances: A guide for heirs and the not-yet-dead

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/strategy-skipped-bitcoin-buys-last-week-amid-new-equity-offering/feed/ 0 50129 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/block-joins-sampp-500-bringing-more-bitcoin-exposure-to-equity-index/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/block-joins-sampp-500-bringing-more-bitcoin-exposure-to-equity-index/#respond Wed, 23 Jul 2025 19:44:47 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/block-joins-sampp-500-bringing-more-bitcoin-exposure-to-equity-index/

Jack Dorsey’s technology company Block joined the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) index on Wednesday, marking the third public company with Bitcoin holdings to join the global benchmark.

Block holds 8,584 Bitcoin (BTC) worth approximately $1 billion, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET. That stash makes Block the 13th-largest corporate holder of BTC.

The company’s shares on the NYSE exchange have jumped nearly 14% over the past five days since the company announced it would join the S&P 500.

The S&P 500 tracks 500 of the largest publicly listed US companies. Among the other index companies exposed to BTC are Tesla and Coinbase.

To be listed in the S&P 500, a company must have a market cap greater than $18 billion, a public float (a portion of the company’s outstanding shares that are available for trading) greater than 10%, and the most recent quarter’s earnings must be positive.

S&P 500 inclusions lead to more BTC exposure

The S&P 500 index accounted for $50 trillion in market capitalization as of the end of first quarter of 2025. By buying into an exchange-traded fund or other instrument that tracks the S&P 500, investors gain exposure to a wide variety of industries, including, now, crypto.

In a Wednesday X post, OnlyCalls wrote, “Institutional entrance solidifies BTC’s financial visibility. Expect more conservative entities to consider BTC as a viable treasury asset.”

Block is replacing Hess Corp, a US energy company that is dropping out after its $55 billion merger with energy conglomerate Chevron.

Related: Strategy launches Bitcoin stock pegged at $100 to increase treasury

Coinbase, Tesla stock performances

The other two companies with significant Bitcoin holdings that have landed in the S&P 500 are Coinbase and Tesla. Coinbase holds 9,267 BTC worth about $1.1 billion at time of publication. Tesla holds 11,509 BTC worth $1.4 billion.

Coinbase’s share price has risen 28.4% over the past month, according to Google Finance. That’s a steeper rise than the overall crypto market, which has jumped 23% in the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko.

Tesla’s share price has fallen 4.6% in the past month, though it may be linked less to the crypto market and more to its fundamentals and operations.

Magazine: Bitcoin OG Willy Woo has sold most of his Bitcoin — Here’s why 

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/block-joins-sampp-500-bringing-more-bitcoin-exposure-to-equity-index/feed/ 0 49265 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/president-trump-plans-to-open-401k-in-bitcoin-crypto-gold-and-private-equity-ft/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/president-trump-plans-to-open-401k-in-bitcoin-crypto-gold-and-private-equity-ft/#respond Fri, 18 Jul 2025 10:45:31 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/president-trump-plans-to-open-401k-in-bitcoin-crypto-gold-and-private-equity-ft/

The Financial Times today reported that President Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that allows him to invest in alternative assets such as gold, private equity and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

“Donald Trump is preparing to open up the 9-ton US retirement market for cryptocurrency investments, gold and private equity amid a move that drives fundamental changes in the way American savings are managed,” the Financial Times reported.

The order is expected this week, according to the Financial Times, and directs federal regulators to eliminate barriers that prevent these non-traditional investments from being included in managed funds. This includes digital assets, metals, private loans, infrastructure transactions and corporate acquisition funds.

“President Trump is committed to restoring the prosperity of everyday Americans and protecting the future of the economy,” the White House said in a statement from the financial era. “However, unless they come from President Trump himself, the decision should not be considered official.”

Trump’s move is based on his administration’s previous efforts to ease Bitcoin and crypto regulations. In May, the Labor Department overturned rules that discouraged Bitcoin and other codes in its retirement plans. Trump also praised the industry for passing recent Bitcoin and other crypto-related bills in the House, helping him win the 2024 election.

The executive order could benefit major private investment companies such as Blackstone, Apollo and BlackRock, reported by the Financial Times. All of this holds a lot of future growth into investing money on behalf of retirement savings.

“Blackstone has attacked its partnership with Vanguard, but Apollo and the Partner Group are one of the companies offering investments in Empowerment, a massive 401K Plan sponsor.

Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (BTSR) is announcing its plans to go public by merging with Cantor Equity Partners, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) created by financial services titan Cantor Fitzgerald.

According to a new press release, BTSR Holdings will be merging with Cantor Equity Partners as a means of going public and is set to launch with 30,021 Bitcoin (BTC) in its treasury, making it the fourth-largest public BTC treasury on the market.

BTSR will also launch with $1.5 billion and 5,021 BTC in Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) financing – which are funds earned when a private investor purchases shares of a publicly traded company, often at a discount to the market price not available to the public – the largest amount ever PIPE amount associated with the crypto asset by market cap.

As stated by Adam Back, chief executive and co-founder of BTSR, in the press release,

“By securing both fiat and Bitcoin funding on day one – including the first convertible preferred round announced in conjunction with a Bitcoin treasury SPAC merger – we are putting unprecedented firepower behind a single mission: maximizing Bitcoin ownership per share while accelerating real-world Bitcoin adoption.”

SPACs are shell companies that raise capital through initial public offerings (IPOs) with the intention of merging with other firms.

In a recent report, Reuters says that with this move, the firm is planning on being listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Bitcoin is trading for $118,782 at time of writing, a fractional decrease during the last 24 hours.

Follow us on X, Facebook and Telegram

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Check Price Action

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

&nbsp

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/creative_studio_design/S-Design1689

Merrill Lynch will have to shell out nearly $3.7 million in damages and other costs after arbitrators sided against the wealth management firm following a private equity complaint.

Two customers, Qun He and Haihui Zhang, filed a complaint against Merrill, Bank of America’s wealth management division, in late 2023, alleging the firm violated securities laws, industry standards and its fiduciary duty.

The complainants also alleged the firm acted with negligence and negligent supervision and breached its contract related to various unspecified securities. Merrill Lynch denied the allegations.

The U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) made an independent arbitration forum available, and a public panel of arbitrators decided Merrill Lynch should pay the claimants $2.73 million in compensatory damages, $2,002 in costs and $954,634 in attorneys’ fees.

Michael Bixby, a Florida attorney who represented the two customers, tells AdvisorHub that a broker recommended investments in illiquid proprietary feeder funds sold by Merrill. Bixby says that the feeder funds pooled capital into private equity investments overseen by institutional investors such as Apollo Global Management, KKR and Blackstone.

The lawyer says the recommended funds were advertised as having potential annual returns of 15% to 20%, but ended up recording annual returns around 3% after subtracting private equity fees and administrative charges from Merrill.

“We’re pleased with the result, and we think it reflects the arbitrator’s decision that Merrill was responsible for misconduct and held them accountable.” 

Follow us on X, Facebook and Telegram

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Check Price Action

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

&nbsp

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Generated Image: Midjourney

Shareholders trimmed support for executive pay packages at leading US Bitcoin (BTC) miners to an average of 64% in this year’s proxy season, far below the over 90% approval norm across the S&P 500, according to a July 10 VanEck research note. 

VanEck reviewed filings from eight listed miners and found average named-executive-officer (NEO) compensation climbed from $6.6 million in 2023 to $14.4 million in draft 2024 proxies.

Equity and other long-term instruments accounted for 79% of total pay in 2023 and 89% in 2024, well above the Russell 3000’s 63% and the energy sector’s 63% weighting. 

Base salaries remained near industry norms at roughly $474,000, but equity grants increased significantly. 

Riot Platforms’ CEO secured a $79.3 million 2024 stock award, nearly double Marathon’s $40.1 million grant and multiple times the peer averages. Meanwhile, Core Scientific (CORZ), which was emerging from bankruptcy, issued its CEO $39.5 million in stock as part of remuneration.

Say-on-pay votes show mounting resistance

CORZ, Riot, and Marathon (MARA) failed their 2025 advisory votes on compensation, garnering approval rates of only 38%, 32%, and 22%, respectively. 

Industry-wide, six in eight companies missed the 70% support threshold that proxy adviser ISS flags as “low support,” a failure rate of 75% versus about 4% for the Russell 3000. 

Investors also scrutinised dilution. Equity plan expansions equal to roughly 10% of the shares outstanding were approved at Terawulf and CORZ, while smaller increases were approved at Bit Digital, Hut 8, and MARA. Analysts warned that generous share reserves amplify insider dilution when awards vest on short timelines. 

Gradual shift toward performance gating

Six of the eight miners now use performance stock units (PSUs) that vest on multi-year share price or total shareholder return targets, up from two in 2022. However, CleanSpark has yet to adopt PSUs, and Bit Digital has authorization but no issuance. 

VanEck noted that most plans still rely on two to three-year vesting horizons and “as-achieved” equity, leaving alignment gaps with long-term value creation. 

Comparing 2024 NEO pay with market cap gains shows stark dispersion: Riot’s $230 million aggregate NEO compensation equalled 73% of its market-cap increase, while Marathon’s 18% ratio and Core Scientific’s 2% ratio reflected better alignment. 

VanEck concluded that boards can temper push-back by tying bonuses to cost-per-coin-mined to enforce operating discipline, linking long-term equity to return-on-capital metrics instead of absolute share-price targets, and extending vesting schedules and capping awards to curb dilution. 

Mentioned in this article

Robinhood’s private equity tokens, offering exposure to tech stocks like SpaceX and OpenAI, have triggered regulatory scrutiny in Europe after OpenAI raised concerns and said that the digital assets do not represent equity ownership in the company, CNBC reported on July 7.

The Bank of Lithuania, which serves as Robinhood’s primary regulator in the European Union, confirmed it is seeking detailed clarifications before assessing the products’ legality.

A spokesperson for the central bank told CNBC:

“Only after receiving and evaluating this information will we be able to assess the legality and compliance of these specific instruments.”

The controversy centers on Robinhood’s recent announcement of an expansion into tokenized securities, including plans to issue over 200 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs for European investors.

The brokerage announced plans to launch its private equity tokens and a new layer-2 blockchain on June 30, positioning itself as a major player in the rapidly growing tokenization sector.

However, OpenAI has distanced itself from the tokens, warning investors that Robinhood’s so-called OpenAI tokens do not provide any equity stake or direct ownership rights in the company.

The scrutiny comes as financial institutions ramp up efforts to capture a slice of the tokenization market, which is valued at over $24 billion as of June 30.

Although tokenized private credit and U.S. Treasury debt currently dominate the sector, accounting for the majority of value, tokenized equities remain a small but potentially fast-growing segment, with just $188 million in current market share.

Major players such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have also entered the tokenization space, issuing tokenized money market funds and exploring blockchain-based settlements to improve efficiency and transparency.

However, despite the optimism, legal and regulatory uncertainties remain significant. Regulators and lawyers continue to debate whether tokenized equity instruments require full securities registration or if derivative-like structures are sufficient to meet compliance standards in Europe and the U.S.

For Robinhood, the regulatory probe in Lithuania could set an important precedent as the brokerage seeks to roll out its tokenization framework globally.

Its recent presentation at the EthCC conference in Brussels outlined plans to tokenize a wide range of financial instruments, but the backlash highlights the fine line between innovation and investor protection in the fast-evolving digital asset market.

Mentioned in this article

Tokenized equity offerings for OpenAI being offered to Robinhood users in Europe are not officially authorized by the company, the AI giant said in a social media post.

“These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity. We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it,” OpenAI posted on X. “Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval — we did not approve any transfer.”

Earlier this week, Robinhood announced it was launching tokenized stock trading based on the Arbitrum blockchain to its users in Europe. As CoinDesk reported earlier, users will have access to 200 equities and ETFs, as well as a secondary market for equity in hot startups like OpenAI and SpaceX.

The idea of tokenized equity in not-yet public companies is nothing new.

In 2018, a blockchain startup called Swarm said it would soon be offering tokenized shares in startups — including Robinhood.

CoinDesk reported at the time that many of the companies Swarm claimed it would be offering equity in pushed back and said such a sale would be unauthorized but Swarm said everything came from “approved secondary market transactions.”

Looking at Robinhood’s current tokenized offering, it’s unclear where the source of equity is. There is some speculation that the equity represents interest in OpenAI shares that have been already acquired via authorized channels, based on comments made by Robinhood’s CEO.

Others have warned that OpenAI — and other startups — would be well within their rights not to honor the sale.

“I expect this natural tension to result in more private companies just cancelling equity sales altogether for those who violate their shareholders’ agreements,” Dragonfly General Partner Rob Hadick posted on X.

Robinhood did not respond to a request for comment from CoinDesk.