A blank-check company backed by former Blackstone dealmaker Chinh Chu and Tether co-founder Reeve Collins is looking to raise $1 billion to build a publicly traded cryptocurrency treasury firm, Bloomberg reported citing sources familiar with the plans.

The vehicle, M3-Brigade Acquisition V, plans to rebrand and use the cash to buy a basket of tokens including bitcoin

, ether and Solana’s sol .

The move comes as public companies worldwide are rushing to add cryptocurrencies as treasury assets. Many, however, are focusing on bitcoin, the largest crypto by market cap, alone. Among them, Anthony Pompliano’s ProCap BTC this week said it planned to go public through a SPAC and stock up on BTC. Multitoken companies are rarer and Brigade Acquisition would be among the first.

Former Hut 8 Mining CEO Jaime Leverton will run the company. Wilbur Ross, who served as U.S. Commerce Secretary, and Gabriel Abed, Barbados’s former ambassador to the UAE and current chair of Binance’s board, will act as vice chairs.

Cantor Fitzgerald is among the advisers, and both the fundraising target and token mix could still change, Bloomberg said.

The biggest name companies with single-coin strategies include Strategy (MSTR) and Metaplanet (3350), whose focus is on bitcoin. Other single tokens firms are exploring alternative coins, for example SharpLink Gaming (SBET) accumulating ether and Nano Labs piling into BNB.

Shares of M3-Brigade fell 12% after news of the plan surfaced on Wednesday, and were recently up 5% pre-market.

Bo Hines told the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas on May 27 that the federal government will hold every Bitcoin (BTC) already in custody and pursue additional budget-neutral ways to increase its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

Hines, who serves as the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, described Bitcoin as “digital gold” and said the asset’s scarcity requires permanent custody. 

He distinguished the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) from the broader Digital Assets National Stockpile by stressing an absolute prohibition on disposals. On March 6, an executive order signed by President Donald Trump established both concepts.

Hines added:

“We’re not going to sell any Bitcoin that we possibly have in the US government, period.”

Furthermore, he highlighted that the US recognizes Bitcoin as a commodity with “intrinsic stored value.” This status justifies a separate, single-asset reserve.

Open-ended accumulation with budget neutrality

Hines rejected the idea of a numeric target for federal holdings and clarified that there is no cap. He said:

“We want as much as we can possibly get.”

He added the reserve framework instructs officials to find “budget-neutral ways” to grow the stack, and the working group continues to study options that meet that condition.

Conference speakers suggested ways to add Bitcoin to the reserve without using taxpayer funds. 

VanEck’s head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel, shared the concept of a royalty tied to Bitcoin mining in the US. Miners would pay a fraction of their block rewards in BTC to a government wallet, streamlining the accumulation process.

Furthermore, crypto mining plants that utilize wasted methane would be exempt from taxes.

Galaxy Digital’s head of research, Alex Thorn, thinks the “quickest pathway” is to sell altcoins from the Digital Asset Stockpile and use the proceeds to acquire more BTC.

He added:

“In fact, that’s elegant, because you don’t even need to touch cash. You could sell an altcoin/BTC pair, cash never appears. There is nothing for the vultures of government to grab onto.”

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The consumer price index (CPI) report due Wednesday will be the first under President Donald Trump’s tenure, with signs of cooling likely to raise the chance of an interest-rate cut and lift the spirits of investors in risk assets, who have been hammered in recent weeks.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is forecast to say headline inflation declined year-over-year to 2.9% from 3%, while core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also lost 0.1 percentage point to 3.2%.

Slower inflation raises the chance of an interest-rate cut, making riskier investments more attractive. CPI, which measures the cost of a basket of goods and services across the U.S. economy, has accelerated for four consecutive months.

In the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has dropped almost 10% from its all-time high and bitcoin (BTC) has lost around 30% to around $80,000.

Both Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have emphasized the need for lower 10-year Treasury yields to bring down the federal funds rate. So far, this strategy appears to be working, with the 10-year yield falling to 4.2% from 4.8%, the dollar index (DXY) weakening below 104 and WTI crude oil stabilizing in the mid-$60 range — aligning with the administration’s economic plans.

Meanwhile, the Truflation Index has hit 1.35%, its lowest level since September 2020. However, five- and 10-year inflation expectations remain above 2%, indicating that Trump still has work to do in managing long-term inflation expectations.

At the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on March 18-19, Chair Jerome Powell is expected to hold the federal funds rate steady at 4.25%-4.50%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Investors will be closely watching the inflation report, as a cooler-than-expected print could prompt the Federal Reserve to consider rate cuts. Conversely, a “hot” inflation reading would likely keep rates higher for longer and put further pressure on risk assets.