Bitcoin rose nearly 6% to a market capitalization of $1.83T.
Early Riders Media
Michael, Brian, and Liam discuss the latest in capital formation, market structure, and latest deals on this week's podcast.
You can find all our episodes on our podcast website as well as listen on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Industry & Institutional Updates
Texas becomes the first U.S. state to execute an initial $5M IBIT purchase as part of its new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, with a potential ~$10M target.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs log monthly outflows of ~$3.79B in November
Bitcoin treasury companies added 18.7K bitcoin in November, lifting total bitcoin held by DAT firms to ~1.86M bitcoin.
Bridgepoint agreed to acquire a majority stake in ht.digital, which provides cryptocurrency audit, assurance, and compliance services. The acquisition values ht.digital at nearly £200M.
USDT0 crossed $50B+ in transfers, reflecting rising institutional stablecoin usage across L1s and L2s.
Paxos acquired Fordefi, an institutional MPC-wallet and crypto-custody provider, for over $100M, strengthening its infrastructure for enterprise and financial-institution clients.
JPMorgan introduced a bitcoin-linked structured note tied to IBIT’s performance, expanding traditional-finance access to bitcoin exposure.
Regulatory Updates
Japan is moving to require crypto exchanges to hold dedicated liability-reserve funds to ensure customer protection in the event of hacks or operational failures. The rule would mandate that exchanges maintain a reserve pool large enough to refund users if assets are lost, strengthening Japan's consumer-protection framework.
Uzbekistan announces a regulatory framework that will be effective on January 1, 2026, that will allow for stablecoins to be used for payments and will enable tokenized shares and bonds to be issued by local entities.
What We’re Watching
We've seen a large increase in total merchants accepting bitcoin as payment recently, following Square's rollout of its integration through its POS systems.
Acropolis continues to work with businesses of all sizes: from family owned businesses, to publicly traded companies, to help them manage their bitcoin treasury, and align on their bitcoin strategy.
Bitcoin's open interest declined nearly 38% as the recent sell off led to the largest decline in open interest since 2022. Chart via MacroMicro.
Find this valuable? Please forward this to someone in your network who may find benefit from the information.
Early Riders is the first bitcoin-denominated venture firm, raising, holding, investing, and returning capital in bitcoin. Learn more about how to get involved www.earlyriders.com.
Make sure to keep up with all our research at earlyriders.com/research.
Subscribe to Keep Reading
Get the full piece, plus all the latest Early Riders research, letters, and the Open Range weekly, delivered directly to your inbox.
Subscribing is free, and this device stays unlocked once you do.