Institutional Wave Recap

Two weeks of the institutional wave. Here’s where things stand.

The wave started with MicroStrategy and moved faster than anyone expected. Corporate treasuries, hedge funds, ETFs, public pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, governments. Four years from eccentric bet to Senate floor.

BlackRock’s presence is the clearest signal — the world’s largest asset manager doesn’t participate in things it doesn’t believe meet institutional standards. Financial advisors who were waiting for cover now have it.

Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds are at the early stages. Wisconsin, Abu Dhabi, Norway’s indirect exposure. Small positions, significant precedents.

Governments are accumulating through different routes — deliberate strategy in El Salvador and Bhutan, accidental accumulation through US enforcement seizures. The policy debate about what to do with those holdings is real and moving.

Institutional adoption makes demand steadier and more patient — without changing the supply schedule or eliminating the price swings that sentiment causes. It’s a structural tailwind, not a guarantee.

And one of the most expensive accidental asset disposals in US government history happened in 2014, when the FBI auctioned 144,000 Bitcoin for $48 million. The lesson from that decision shapes the current debate even when nobody mentions it directly.

Next two weeks: energy, environment, and freedom. The questions at the intersection of Bitcoin and the world it’s being built in.

Tomorrow: Bitcoin and the bond market — why the debt picture matters for Bitcoin.

— The Daily Bit