The only constant in life is change.
This past week, Michael Saylor went from “never sell your Bitcoin” to selling 3,588 BTC.
Some called it heresy, while others viewed it as a pragmatic move as Strategy enters a new chapter.
Strike is evolving too.
What began as a simple way to buy and send Bitcoin has grown into a platform for borrowing against it.
Since launching Bitcoin-backed loans, they’ve become one of Strike’s most popular products, pushing the company to rethink how Bitcoin lending should work.
This week, Strike unveiled its biggest innovation yet: volatility-proof Bitcoin-backed loans.
The catch? Like everything in finance, eliminating one risk means paying for it. In this case, that price is a 14% interest rate.
Other top stories from the week include:
Bitcoin price chart gets turned into a live bulls-vs-bears battle game.
#FreeSamourai launches a $30,000 campaign to help win a pardon.
New Hampshire rejects world’s first Bitcoin-backed municipal bond.
Latest News
Adoption
Nick Greenawalt vibe-codes a website that transforms Bitcoin’s one-second price chart into a live animated battlefield, where bulls and bears clash in real time with every market move.
Radar Chat launches a free open-source app combining Signal-compatible encrypted messaging with self-custodial Bitcoin Lightning payments, letting users send sats as easily as texts.
Africa’s Bitcoin-only ecosystem has grown to 189 verified projects across 23 countries, adding 22 projects in six months, according to Afribitcoiners’ community-maintained directory.
Regulation
Bull Bitcoin challenges France’s DAC8 implementation in court, arguing mandatory crypto data collection and cross-border sharing endanger users, and pledging appeals to Europe’s highest courts if necessary.
Kraken will receive a $22 million award over alleged Operation Chokepoint 2.0 damages, compensating the exchange for financial harm from efforts to restrict crypto firms’ access to banking services.
#FreeSamourai organizers launched a $30,000 contest campaign to build a White House pardon case for Samourai Wallet developers, with $10,000 awarded for the first professional briefing package due July 21.
Markets
Strike launches volatility-proof Bitcoin-backed loans that eliminate margin calls and price liquidations, allowing borrowers paying 14% interest to access dollars without risking forced sales during dips.
Tether plans to relaunch USDT natively on Bitcoin through the RGB protocol, with UTEXO targeting a July rollout enabling stablecoin transfers via Bitcoin addresses and the Lightning Network.
Vanguard is hiring its first Head of Digital Assets to lead firmwide strategy and a multi-year roadmap, marking a notable shift after initially rejecting spot Bitcoin ETF offerings.
Treasury
Strategy sells 3,588 BTC for roughly $216 million, realizing an estimated $55 million loss, reducing holdings to 843,775 BTC while funding digital-credit dividends and strengthening dollar reserves.
Adam Back’s BSTR Holdings and $CEPO terminate their original SPAC merger terms and are negotiating a revised deal, scrapping associated financing while seeking improved terms amid changing market conditions.
Metaplanet launches a joint study with JPYC, Progmat, and Metaplanet Securities to develop Bitcoin-backed digital credit products, targeting 24/7 dividend payments and a Bitcoin-native financial platform in Japan.
Mining
RY3T and the 256 Foundation unveil Mujina, open-source Bitcoin mining firmware that automatically consumes excess solar power instead of exporting it to the grid.
Bitaxe desktop miner running at 1 TH/s, solo-mined Bitcoin block 957,382, earning 3.1382 BTC worth about $200,580 in an estimated 1-in-16,000-year event.
Bitdeer unveils its Sealminer A4 Ultra Hydro Bitcoin ASIC, delivering 1 petahash per second at 10 J/TH, matching the combined hashrate of roughly 1,000 mining rigs from 2015.
Politics
New Hampshire’s Executive Council rejected a proposed $100 million Bitcoin-backed bond in a 3-2 vote, blocking what supporters said could have become the world’s first Bitcoin-collateralized municipal bond.
Strategic Bitcoin Reserve remains stalled as Treasury and Commerce dispute over control, delaying implementation sixteen months after Trump’s executive order.
El Salvador opens an honorary consulate in Lugano, Switzerland, strengthening Bitcoin-focused ties through investment, education, and technology partnerships, including collaboration with Plan ₿ Network.
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Finance Is Entering Bitcoin
It wasn’t that long ago that Celsius and BlockFi collapsed, tarnishing the entire idea of borrowing against Bitcoin. People lost their savings. Withdrawals were frozen. Bitcoin-backed loans were liquidated during violent market swings.
For many, the lesson was simple:
Never lend your Bitcoin. Never borrow against it.
But I think those are two very different things. The core problem with Celsius and BlockFi wasn’t borrowing fiat against an appreciating asset like Bitcoin.
The problem was giving up custody of your Bitcoin in exchange for yield.
If you own an asset that is designed to appreciate over the long term because of its fixed supply and growing demand, borrowing against it in a currency that continually loses purchasing power can make sense. At least in theory.
What makes far less sense is taking the scarcest asset you own, adding counterparty risk, and potentially losing it all just to earn a few extra percentage points.
That was always the key question: Where does the yield come from?
Eventually, Celsius and BlockFi customers found out.
They were the yield.
The Appeal Never Disappeared
Despite everything that happened, the basic appeal of Bitcoin-backed lending never disappeared. Long-term Bitcoin holders often face the same problem:
They may be wealthy in Bitcoin but still need dollars, euros, or pesos to pay for real-world expenses.
Selling Bitcoin means giving up future exposure to the asset. Depending on where you live, it can also trigger capital gains taxes or increase government scrutiny of your finances.
Borrowing against Bitcoin offers another path. You keep your exposure to the asset while accessing liquidity today. But there’s still one major risk: liquidation.
Bitcoin is volatile. A sharp, temporary price drop can push the value of your collateral below the lender’s required threshold, triggering a forced liquidation at the worst possible time.
Even if your long-term thesis is correct, short-term volatility can wipe out your position.
That risk has understandably kept many Bitcoin holders on the sidelines.
No Margin Calls
This week, Strike announced a product designed to address that problem:
by Strike
Bitcoin-backed loans with no margin calls or price-based liquidations, as long as borrowers continue making their required payments.
That doesn’t mean the loans are risk-free. The trade-offs are a relatively high interest rate of around 14% and a maximum term of six months. Borrowers still have to repay the loan, cover the interest, and trust a company with custody of their Bitcoin.
The risk hasn’t disappeared. It has simply changed.
Instead of risking liquidation during a temporary Bitcoin price crash, borrowers must ensure they can keep making payments regardless of market conditions. For some, that may be a far more manageable risk. For others, paying 14% to avoid selling Bitcoin may still be too high a price.
The Direction Is Clear
Whether Strike’s product sees widespread adoption is almost beside the point. What matters is the direction.
Finance is coming to Bitcoin.
Companies are beginning to treat Bitcoin not just as an asset to buy and hold, but as collateral for loans, credit products, and entirely new financial instruments. That was probably inevitable. An asset worth trillions of dollars was never going to remain separate from global credit markets.
The real question is whether this new generation of products can unlock Bitcoin’s value without recreating the opaque leverage, rehypothecation, and counterparty risks that brought down the last generation of crypto lenders.
Bitcoin may be pristine collateral.
That doesn’t mean every financial product built around it is.
Still, a Bitcoin-backed loan that doesn’t force borrowers to sell during a temporary price crash is a meaningful innovation.
The financial system is learning how to work with Bitcoin. Let’s hope Bitcoin changes finance more than finance changes Bitcoin.
Keep building. Keep stacking.
- Bam
