Weekly Roundup 07/03/26 (OpenUSD announced, Binance leaves the EU, Strategy's new framework) (EP.728)

Strategy announced a five-component digital credit capital framework on Monday. The firm raised over 1.2 billion dollars through at-the-money equity sales last week, bringing cash reserves to 2.55 billion dollars and extending dividend coverage on preferred securities to 17.4 months. Strategy moved the STRC dividend to 12 percent annualized with a target trading range of 99 to 100 dollars, though STRC was trading at 87 dollars at the time of recording. Two separate repurchase programs of up to 1 billion dollars each were announced, one covering preferred securities and one covering common stock, both funded by selling Bitcoin rather than dollar reserves. A new Bitcoin monetization plan allows the sale of up to 1.25 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin to fund those repurchases. The framework did not address convertible notes with puts coming due in September 2027 worth approximately 1 billion dollars.

Matt Walsh characterized Strategy as now functioning as an actively traded Bitcoin hedge fund capable of buying or selling equity, issuing or retiring preferreds, and buying or selling Bitcoin. Nick Carter pushed back, arguing that Saylor's demonstrated skill set is fundraising and generating excitement rather than identifying trading signals, making him a questionable candidate to run an actively managed strategy. Carter also noted that Jeff Dorman flagged that an equity security operating this way would normally be classified as an investment company under SEC jurisdiction, but Bitcoin's commodity status sidesteps that classification.

OpenUSD is a new stablecoin consortium with 140 member firms, governed by its members, and positioned as a neutral alternative to Circle and Tether. Its initial CEO is Zac Abrams, who founded Bridge and sold it to Stripe. Backers include Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, BNY, and YellowCard. The key differentiator is that OpenUSD will share float economics with participants on a pro rata basis according to how much flow each member brings, whereas Circle shares revenue through individually negotiated bilateral arrangements. Circle stock fell approximately 10 to 12 percent on the day of the announcement. Jeremy Allaire publicly responded, arguing that zero-cost mint and redeem windows cannot be opened to all participants because compliance costs are substantial. Speakers expressed skepticism, noting that prior stablecoin consortiums including Global Dollar and Libra failed, that getting 140 companies to sign a press release is easy while reaching production is hard, and that large founding membership often signals the details have not been worked through. Stripe was identified as a potential major beneficiary given its capacity to bring large asset volumes to the platform.

Binance failed to transition to the MiCA regulatory regime by the deadline and has suspended all activity for EU residents, with plans to reapply for authorization through France. Bybit also missed the MiCA deadline and lacks authorization to operate in the EU. Among major exchanges, Coinbase, Kraken, and OKX were among the 210 firms that received MiCA authorization.

President Trump's 2025 financial disclosure reported 1.4 billion dollars in crypto income for the year. Of that total, 635 million dollars came from royalties described as celebration coins, likely the Trump and Melania meme coins, and 500 million dollars came from World Liberty Financial token sales. Speakers viewed the disclosure as damaging to the ongoing market structure legislative push.

Robinhood officially launched Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum-based layer-two network, featuring 24/7 tokenized stocks, a Morpho-powered USDG lending platform called Robinhood Earn, an Athena integration, and perpetual futures built on Lighter. The launch comes as Robinhood's crypto business has been experiencing declining volumes, with Coinbase volumes also down significantly since October 10.

Dat K Wave Media, a NASDAQ-listed Korean K-pop company, announced 1 billion dollars in financing capacity targeting 10,000 Bitcoin but ultimately purchased only 88 Bitcoin before selling that position and pivoting to GPU compute and AI infrastructure. Speakers argued the broader market cannot fully bottom until leveraged Bitcoin treasury vehicles unwind and their coins are expelled from the system. Some may remain in purgatory for seven to ten years because management teams have an incentive to keep them running to harvest fees and salaries of approximately 3 percent per year, few legal mechanisms exist to force liquidation, and the funds are too small to attract activist investors. Speakers predicted class action lawyers will pursue cases related to misleading public statements made by operators of these vehicles.