This week Aave governance advanced a framework proposal called “Aave Will Win” by passing a temperature check, which is an early, non-binding signal vote that precedes a formal onchain proposal. The vote passed narrowly: 52.58% in favor, 42% against, and 5.42% abstain, with about 622,300 votes on the yes side.

At a high level, the framework is trying to resolve an awkward reality: crypto’s biggest DeFi borrow/lend protocol is governed by a DAO, but much of the user-facing product layer has been built and operated by the centralized company, Aave Labs. “Aave Will Win” proposes routing 100% of revenue from Labs-run products back to the DAO treasury (net of partner payouts), formally positioning Aave v4 as the long-term technical foundation, and pairing that with a major funding request of $25 million in stablecoins plus 75,000 AAVE.

The problem is that this vote is landing in the middle of a governance credibility crisis. A dispute over interface fees and control escalated into broader accusations that Labs-linked voting power can effectively decide outcomes, and key groups have announced plans to step back this spring and summer.

As Taylor Monahan put it on Uneasy Money: “What the heck is the AAVE token going to be useful for moving forward?”

In the rest of this article, we’ll cover:

• Whether AAVE is actually a good investment after the DAO drama, not just a “big DeFi name”

• The bull case and the bear case, and what has to happen for each to be true

• Real value capture: fees, buybacks, treasury flows, and what is real versus aspirational

• Whether Aave can defend its moat if key builders and governance stewards keep leaving

When Coinbase’s Base announced it was leaving the Optimism Superchain, 94% of Optimism’s daily commission income disappeared.

Optimism built the infrastructure, Coinbase built Base on top of it, Base grew until it no longer needed the arrangement — and is now leaving. It was a rational business decision by a counterparty that had outgrown the deal — and a predictable one.

To be fair, OP did win new business around the same time. EtherFi, one of the more serious protocols in the liquid restaking space, migrated its Cash product from Scroll to OP Mainnet. That is a real protocol with real TVL choosing their chain. 

Could that close the gap?

And if not, is the problem OP is facing with Base a one-time event or a structural feature of the generalized L2 business? If the latter, that has implications not only for Optimism, but also for Arbitrum, newly home to Robinhood Chain.

In the rest of this piece, you will find:

• The graduation trap by the numbers: what the Superchain actually generates without Base, what the buyback program is worth at current revenue levels, and why the math doesn’t work at today’s market cap

• What EtherFi actually means: why the migration from Scroll is a real win for OP — and whether it can fill the hole Base left

• ARB and the Robinhood question: whether Arbitrum’s arrangement with Robinhood represents a genuine new revenue model or a three-year countdown to the same outcome OP had with Base

• What the market is pricing: why OP Mainnet’s headline multiple doesn’t tell the full story

The AI story is usually told as a product story. Smarter models. Faster inference. Agents that book your flights and rebalance your portfolio.

The balance sheet version is less cinematic.

Across the major hyperscaler cloud service providers, annual capital expenditure tied to AI now totals roughly $700 billion in aggregate guidance. Data centers are being expanded. Power contracts are being signed. Debt is being layered onto infrastructure that will take years to be fully utilized.

Markets have started to flinch. In mid-February, the Magnificent Seven ETF broke below its 200-day moving average for the first time since the tariff shock of 2025. Microsoft, the weakest of the group, has lost nearly a quarter of its value over the past six months and now trades at roughly 24x forward earnings, down from a three-year average above 34x. The Mag 7 are down over 6% year to date as a group. 

At the same time, something quieter is happening. Bitcoin miners are signing long-term AI colocation leases backed by hyperscaler credit. Payment networks are being wired for autonomous agents to transact in stablecoins. A protocol called x402 is already processing hundreds of millions of dollars in machine-to-machine payments this year.

If the capex regime is even slightly mispriced, the hedge is not in better models.

It’s in the toll roads.

In the rest of this piece, we answer three questions investors should care about:

• Where does the real downside sit if AI capex slows?

• Which public proxies are quietly most exposed?

• And where might the more durable cash flows actually be hiding?

On Wednesday, BlackRock announced that its $2.4 billion tokenized Treasury fund, BUIDL, would be tradable on UniswapX through a partnership with Securitize.

The firm also disclosed it had purchased UNI tokens as a strategic investment. Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock's head of digital assets, called it "a notable step in the convergence of tokenized assets with decentralized finance."

This is, by any reasonable measure, a significant development. The biggest player in global finance is routing a tokenized government bond through DeFi infrastructure. Whitelisted investors with $5 million minimums can now swap BUIDL for USDC around the clock, settled on Ethereum. 

It's worth noting which chain BlackRock chose for this: Ethereum. A decade of uptime and credible neutrality is quietly paying off. When the world's largest asset manager needs a settlement layer for tokenized Treasuries, it picks the network that has never gone down.

UNI surged from $3.26 to $4.57 in about 15 minutes. By the next morning, it was back to $3.37.

The market bought the thesis, did the math, and sold.

Nic Carter put words to this dynamic recently on the Bits + Bips podcast. Paraphrasing: the VC-backed, flashy token era is over. What's left is "the boring stuff," the cash-flowing businesses, crypto as invisible infrastructure powering finance. 

Wednesday's UNI price action was a perfect illustration. The protocol got a landmark endorsement. The token couldn't hold a rally for 12 hours.

In the rest of the article, we’ll cover:

• Why the UNI rally died within hours

• The key metric institutions actually price

• Three scenarios for UNI over 12 months

• The catalysts that could re-rate UNI’s economics

In volatile markets, it’s easy to focus on price and miss the bigger reset happening underneath.

Earlier this week, Vitalik acknowledged that the rollup-centric roadmap is effectively over. That wasn’t a reaction to markets, but it fundamentally changes how ETH and L2 tokens should be evaluated.

We published a piece breaking this down in plain terms. It’s not about the crash. It’s about which assets actually deserve to be held through the next phase.

If you’re thinking about buying this dip, this is your weekend required reading.

Read it here:

Ethereum Lets Go of the Rollup Story. Here Are the 6 Tokens That Benefit

After years of denial, Vitalik Buterin admits L2s aren’t “branded shards.” What that means for ETH, L2 tokens, and who's who benefits now.

bitsandbips.beehiiv.com/p/ethereum-lets-go-of-the-rollup-story-here-are-the-6-tokens-that-benefit

Over the past week, Bitcoin fell from roughly $84,000 to a low near $60,000 before reclaiming the $70,000 level, one of the sharpest drawdowns the market has seen in years. ETH also dropped from $2,700 to nearly $1,800, but is now above $2,000.

This piece isn’t about the crash itself, but periods like this tend to force a reset in how investors think about what they own and why — and Vitalik Buterin’s latest blog post about Ethereum’s direction sets a new tone for ETH.

On Tuesday, Vitalik said the original vision of layer 2s as branded shards “no longer makes sense.” 

The post wasn’t a technical update so much as a concession. After years of treating L2s as Ethereum’s primary scaling path, Vitalik is now acknowledging what critics had argued all along: that L2s evolved into economically sovereign systems with incentives that do not always align with the base layer.

For example, figures in the Solana ecosystem, including Max Resnick and Kyle Samani, have long warned that rollups siphon activity from L1 without reliably returning value and that Ethereum’s roadmap was utterly wrong.

Ethereum largely ignored those views until the post-Dencun reality made them harder to dismiss. Dencun, a March 2024 upgrade, slashed rollup data costs and worked as intended, but it also accelerated the migration of activity off L1, weakening fee burn and the “ultrasound money” narrative. After that, many started questioning L2s, calling them “parasitic.”

Vitalik’s post is the clearest acknowledgment yet that the old model is over. Ethereum no longer needs L2s as “branded shards,” as he called them in his blog post, and many L2s are “not able or willing” to meet those assumptions anyway. 

Now, what does this all mean for $ETH and other L2 tokens?

In the rest of this article, we’ll move past protocol design and into market consequences: 

• what this reframing means for L2 tokens, 

• why generic rollups are facing a narrative reset, 

• how Base benefits,

• which types of L2s (and tokens) actually benefit from the world Vitalik is describing,

• what it means for $ETH.

On Thursday, we published a deep dive on Hyperliquid and why its recent run wasn’t just price action.

Since then, the data has only strengthened the case.

Hyperliquid’s share of total perp DEX volume has climbed¹ back above 26%, the highest level since the October 10 liquidation event. For months, the big question was whether competitors would take open interest share as incentives faded. That never happened. Hyperliquid has quietly held around 50% of perp DEX open interest the entire time.

Then there’s silver.

On Friday alone, silver traded roughly $3 billion on Hyperliquid. For context, the CME traded about $130 billion notional the same day. That means Hyperliquid captured close to 2% of the world’s primary silver market for an asset it listed just 30 days ago.

HIP-3 markets are now generating meaningful revenue as well. Trade.xyz posted² $372k in 24-hour revenue, surpassing Lighter and ranking just behind Jupiter. Trade.xyz also printed a new all-time high of $4.28 billion in daily volume.

We didn’t just describe the Hyperliquid run. We uncovered why it’s happening, and where it might go next.

That article is paid, but we’re offering a free trial.

If you’re on the fence, there’s really no downside.

Here’s the article:

Why HYPE Is Up While Every Other Crypto, Including Bitcoin, Is Down

As crypto markets dropped, Hyperliquid pulled in macro traders, deepened liquidity, and outperformed everything else.

bitsandbips.beehiiv.com/p/why-hype-is-up-while-every-other-crypto-including-bitcoin-is-down

In today’s market selloff, bitcoin dropped roughly 6%.

Hyperliquid’s native token slipped about 4.8%.

Zooming out, HYPE is still up roughly 50% since Monday.

That alone would not be remarkable in crypto. What makes it notable is the context. The broader market has moved sharply lower. There was no risk-on impulse, no alt complex catching a bid. If anything, the tape has turned decisively defensive.

This move was not riding a market rally. It was specific to Hyperliquid.

Source: TradingView

When a single token materially outperforms in a flat tape, the market is telling you something. Either it is wrong and chasing noise, or it is repricing something structural that most people have not fully internalized yet.

In this article, we’ll explain:

• why HYPE, the token for Hyperliquid’s decentralized perpetual futures exchange, moved so much this week, 

• the fundamentals behind it, and 

• where the tradeoffs start to appear from here.

Markets tanked this week.

US stocks fell hard. Global equities followed. Long-dated bonds sold off. Bitcoin dropped below $90,000, ETH and SOL were down double digits on the week, and close to $900M in crypto leverage was wiped out in the past 24 hours.

Crypto’s total market capitalization has lost $300 billion since Jan. 14. 

Source: Coingecko

Gold went the other direction and hit new all-time highs.

That combination is the story. When stocks, bonds, and crypto are all under pressure at the same time, while gold quietly rallies, it usually means the problem isn’t a single asset. It’s the system around them.

The spark this time came from Japan.

In the rest of this article, we’ll go over:

• Why Japan triggered this selloff

• Why gold acted like a hedge and bitcoin didn’t

• The startling historical gold-vs-stock pattern that may be repeating

• How to rethink portfolios when correlations rise

What Happened in Japan

At this point, pretty much everyone understands the debasement trade.

Debt is compounding faster than growth. US federal debt is north of $36 trillion and rising by roughly $1 trillion every 100 days. Deficits are running at 6-7% of GDP outside of recession. Interest expense is on pace to overtake defense spending within the next two years. Japan is monetizing quietly. Europe is boxed in politically. Emerging markets are behaving more conservatively than the developed world, which should tell you something.

This is a structural problem. 

Once you accept that, the question is no longer whether fiat is being diluted. The question is which assets actually outperform when dilution is the baseline, not the tail risk.

Historically, the answer is boring and uncomfortable: Gold. Metals. Hard assets.

Gold, which for the first time surpassed the price of $4,600/oz this week, outperforms in this environment for reasons that have nothing to do with narratives and everything to do with plumbing. 

It is politically neutral. It has no counterparty risk. It sits directly on central bank balance sheets. The gold market is roughly $20 trillion to $30 trillion in size depending on how you measure it, which means it can absorb sovereign scale flows without breaking.

That is why central banks have been buying it aggressively. Over the last three years, net purchases have exceeded⁵ 1,000 tons per year. That is the fastest pace since the early 1970s. 

So gold keeps winning, and that part of the story is not complicated.

What is more interesting is what that implies for bitcoin.

This article is about three things:

1. Why gold keeps winning, plus price targets (yes, they are bullish)

2. Whether bitcoin can catch up (I’ll list SEVEN catalysts you should be aware of)

3. And also importantly, how you treat bitcoin and gold in your portfolio

Good Friday! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained, economist, and crypto investor. 

Today, my eyes are on strategies to make money with prediction markets. 

The sector is booming, but efficiency is lagging. 

Below, I’ll explain how you could turn that gap into opportunity, with clear guides and examples.

6 Ways to Make Money in Prediction Markets in 2026

Prediction markets are finally big enough to matter and still inefficient enough to exploit.

That combination does not last very long.

Retail participation is accelerating. Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi are raising billions at unicorn-level valuations. 

Volumes are sticking, even when crypto cools off. And most users still treat these markets like sports betting with better graphics.

Just look at Polymarket’s growth in 2025, even after people said it would die after the U.S. Presidential elections: 

While most people think that to make money in prediction markets you need to have an edge on insider information, professionals treat them very differently. 

And that’s what we’ll go over today: how to make money without betting on the outcome. 

When Markus Thielen, head of 10x Research, talks about prediction markets, he does not talk about being right or having an informational advantage. He talks about probability, time decay, order flow, and structural mispricing.

In other words, he talks about the same edges that showed up in early crypto derivatives, GBTC, MicroStrategy basis trades, and every other venue where retail urgency met institutional patience. 

And if you don’t know what these mean, don’t worry. All you need to know is that these moves printed big bucks for the investors who knew how to play them. 

Prediction markets are simply the next arena.

In the rest of this piece, you will find:

• The exact strategies that you could use and how each one actually works in practice

• REAL examples that you could trade literally today

• Why most profits come from boring trades, not bold predictions

• Where retail consistently loses money and why

• How to think about prediction markets like a trading desk, not a pundit

Good Friday! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained, economist, and crypto investor. 

Today, my eyes are on strategies to make money with prediction markets. 

The sector is booming, but efficiency is lagging. 

Below, I’ll explain how you could turn that gap into opportunity, with clear guides and examples.

6 Ways to Make Money in Prediction Markets in 2026

Prediction markets are finally big enough to matter and still inefficient enough to exploit.

That combination does not last very long.

Retail participation is accelerating. Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi are raising billions at unicorn-level valuations. 

Volumes are sticking, even when crypto cools off. And most users still treat these markets like sports betting with better graphics.

Just look at Polymarket’s growth in 2025, even after people said it would die after the U.S. Presidential elections: 

While most people think that to make money in prediction markets you need to have an edge on insider information, professionals treat them very differently. 

And that’s what we’ll go over today: how to make money without betting on the outcome. 

When Markus Thielen, head of 10x Research, talks about prediction markets, he does not talk about being right or having an informational advantage. He talks about probability, time decay, order flow, and structural mispricing.

In other words, he talks about the same edges that showed up in early crypto derivatives, GBTC, MicroStrategy basis trades, and every other venue where retail urgency met institutional patience. 

And if you don’t know what these mean, don’t worry. All you need to know is that these moves printed big bucks for the investors who knew how to play them. 

Prediction markets are simply the next arena.

Before betting the house on prediction markets, just beware that this type of trading is different from typical crypto trading or any other kind of investing. 

If you trade to the resolution of the market (it is possible to exit before), then at the end of the trade, you can lose everything. 

In crypto, traditionally, even if the price of your investment goes south, you still retain the principal. So size your bets accordingly. 

The Strategies, From Easiest to Hardest

These strategies are drawn from a podcast discussion on Unchained with Laura Shin and Thielen’s written research.

1. Avoiding longshots under 10%

This is a simple rule and one most people ignore.

According to Thielen's research, contracts priced below ten cents (a.k.a. 10% probability) account for the majority of losses. These trades appeal because the payoff looks large relative to the cost. The math works against the buyer.

How you actually do it:

• Do not buy contracts priced below 10%

• Treat “cheap” payouts as a warning, not an opportunity

• Focus attention on higher probability contracts

Quick tip: If the payout makes you feel clever, you are probably funding someone else’s lunch.

2. Cross-market arbitrage

The same event can trade at different prices across platforms.

Thielen points out that probabilities adjust at different speeds depending on liquidity and onboarding friction.

How you actually do it:

• Find identical or near-identical contracts on two venues

• Compare implied probabilities

• Buy the cheaper side and hedge the more expensive one

• Size positions to offset outcomes

Example: Kalshi vs. Polymarket on Fed decision in January.

In Polymarket, the odds of no change is 96%. And the odds of a 25bps cut is 3%.

In Kalshi, the odds of no change is 97%. And the odds of a 25bps cut is 4%.

Quick tip: If you try this, beware that this is a tight spread. Execution matters here. Fees, capital availability, and transfer speed all affect returns.

3. Time decay capture

Time decay capture can be described as betting against volatility that no longer has enough time to materialize.

Thielen’s example was bitcoin outperforming gold late in the year, when the performance gap was already large and only weeks remained.

How you actually do it:

• Look for contracts tied to year-end or fixed deadlines

• Measure how much movement would be required

• Compare that to recent realized behavior

• Fade outcomes that need extreme late-stage reversals

This works because retail consistently overestimates what can still happen before the clock runs out.

While this sounds simple, don’t always expect that to happen. Here’s a counterexample: 

Look at this bet on Polymarket: Total commitments for the Ranger token public sale on MetaDAO.

The money committed so far to the ICO is $4.8 million, and it ends in less than 24 hours! 

However, Polymarket is pricing a 99% chance that the total commitments will be over $15 million. And 80% that it’ll reach over $50 million. 

Why? Traders are expecting whales to wake up and inject significant amounts of capital at the last minute.

I know this sounds confusing, but this counterexample was just to illustrate how these things can be played. 

4. Late-stage arbitrage

This is a more extreme version of time decay capture, applied very close to expiration.

Thielen discussed this using the Bitcoin ETF inflow example. The remaining time made the required outcome mathematically implausible, yet the market still priced non-trivial probability.

How you actually do it:

• Focus on contracts within days or hours of expiration

• Calculate what must occur in the remaining window

• Identify outcomes that require unrealistic acceleration

• Take the other side

These trades often offer only a few percent. Markus emphasizes that the appeal is repeatability, not drama.

For instance, here’s a trade that ends today: how many tweets will Elon Musk have posted by the end of the week of Jan. 2 (basically today)?

5. Follow the whales!

Price discovery is driven by a small number of large, informed traders.

On crypto-native platforms like Polymarket, their activity is visible.

How you actually do it:

• Observe accounts that consistently trade large size

• Look for repeat success, not one-off wins

• Treat large flows as contextual signals

• Avoid fading informed pressure reflexively

This requires judgment and a tolerance for interim volatility.

For this strategy, I’d suggest you follow these guys. We have no affiliation whatsoever with them, but they usually flag what whales are doing and provide good insights!

6. Probability compression plays

Some probabilities swing too far and then revert as institutions manage expectations.

Thielen’s Fed cut example shows probabilities collapsing from near certainty to low levels, then rebounding after official commentary.

How you actually do it:

• Identify events where officials prefer balanced expectations

• Watch for probabilities that overshoot to the downside or upside

• Enter when odds fall well below a reasonable midpoint

• Exit as probabilities normalize

Closing Thought

Prediction markets reward people who treat them like markets and punish those who treat them like stories.

Most participants are there to be entertained, while a small minority is there to extract probability.

As these platforms scale into 2026, that gap is unlikely to close quickly. But it’s not going to be like this forever.

Which is why the opportunity still exists.

P.S.: 

I believe that THE way to make money in prediction markets is by building infrastructure, such as data and analytics, market making tooling, or apps for automated strategies.

If you are a builder and you are willing to learn and put in the effort, there are plenty of opportunities to get funded. 

VCs are crazy about this area right now, and this will likely continue to invest big here all throughout 2026.

– Juan

Related content: 

• How to Trade Prediction Markets Without an Opinion on the Event

• Inside Robinhood’s Big Super App Plan: ‘There’s Still a Lot of Work to Be Done’

• Coinbase Launches Stock Trading and Prediction Markets

I have been watching premiums for digital asset companies recede below 1 over the past few months. Put another way, they could be seen as a cheaper way to buy bitcoin or ether than the already discounted spot prices. Now, instead of paying a company $2 to buy $1 of bitcoin, you could theoretically buy $1 of an asset for 50-75 cents. 

Seems like a great deal right?

I wanted to find out, so I decided to look into the mechanics behind these discounts and what it would take for them to get back to par. In the first part of the article, I will go over the recent performance of these companies and explore the history of crypto assets trading at discount. But at the end, I analyze exactly what needs to change and whether this is a perfect buying opportunity, or a waste of one’s capital… 

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Crypto Treasury Stocks Are on Sale. Is Now the Time to Buy?

History shows upside, but without easy arbitrage, risks remain high.

Bitcoin and Ether are down, but their DATs are even cheaper (ChatGPT)

Key Takeaways

As bitcoin and ether slide sharply from recent highs, investors are looking at value plays in the market. Digital asset treasury stocks, which are now trading at hefty discounts, represent an intriguing opportunity.

The article explores whether these sub-1.0 mNAV valuations represent a GBTC-style opportunity or a value trap.

• Digital asset treasury stocks have flipped from trading at large premiums to deep discounts, with many now valued well below their underlying bitcoin or ether holdings.

• While history shows discounts like these can create outsized long-term returns, most DATs lack a clear mechanism to close the gap, meaning mispricings can persist or worsen.

• Share buybacks and yield generation, especially for ethereum treasuries, may help support valuations but introduce leverage, liquidity, and execution risks.

• Buying discounted DATs is not a clean arbitrage trade and works best as a long-term, high-conviction bet rather than a short-term dip-buying strategy.

As crypto continues to tumble, there is lots of talk about buying the dip. After all, bitcoin is down approximately 30% from its all-time high above $126,000 in early October and ether has fallen over 35% in the same time period.

(TradingView)

These seem like great deals for the long-term crypto bull. But it may be possible to get exposure to these assets at even bigger discounts — purchasing equity in digital asset companies stockpiling these assets. 

These firms, known as digital asset treasuries (DATs), exploded this year, copying the playbook created by Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor five years ago to accumulate over $150 billion worth of bitcoin and $17 billion worth of ether. And for most of the spring and summer these companies traded at massive premiums to the value of their underlying crypto holdings. 

Essentially, they were getting investors to give them $2 for every $1 of bitcoin in a race to acquire the biggest stockpile possible. Investors were in turn hoping to benefit from a flywheel effect created by concurrent increases in crypto and stock prices, along with new sets of investors buying in at even higher premiums.

But nothing lasts forever, and these firms have crashed as part of this market downtrend. 

“You could put whatever fancy wrappers on it you want, but bottom line is the best analogy for a digital asset treasury company is a closed mutual fund that's willing to issue a lot more shares when times allow,” said Steve Sosnick, Chief Strategist at Interactive Brokers, in an interview. “But the bottom line is it's a pretty straightforward business. It stretched the imagination to think that [2-3x multiples] are sustainable. It was a money machine.”

Virtually every major DAT focused on these assets is now trading at a discount, meaning that its premium (mNAV) is below 1.0. Essentially, investors now think that these companies are worth even less than their crypto holdings. Many are trading at discounts of almost 50% the value of their holdings (see Key Figure). 

Almost all have also dramatically underperformed their reference assets since early October. 

(TradingView)

(TradingView)

These dynamics beg the following questions for investors:

1. If markets are poised to eventually rebound, is it smart to buy these stocks to earn even higher returns than spot?

2. Is the natural equilibrium for DAT premiums to be around 1? If so, do these massive discounts represent a unique arbitrage opportunity for investors?

Key Background

In the past investors have taken advantage of these types of discounts to make big money. From February 2021 to the beginning of 2024, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which now trades as an ETF on the NYSE Arca exchange, traded at a discount to its net asset value (NAV) that almost reached 50%.

(The Block)

It fell so low for a few reasons. First, before the trust was able to convert to an ETF, it also operated like a closed-end mutual fund. That means that while investors could buy shares at NAV, they would be able to trade freely at premiums or discounts once issued. The closed part comes in because investors have no way to redeem shares for the underlying collateral. 

GBTC was crypto’s version of Hotel California.

For years (GBTC first launched in 2013), the asset traded at a lofty premium that topped 100%. A major reason was the lack of other regulated alternatives for investors to get access to crypto, particularly if they did not want to custody the crypto themselves. 

But, the premium flipped to a discount when the first bitcoin ETF launched in Canada (which allowed redemptions) and the discount continued to grow during the crypto winter of 2022 when many prominent firms such as Three Arrows Capital, Genesis Trading, and BlockFi, went bankrupt and the price of bitcoin tumbled below $15,000.

But even when bitcoin started to recover in 2023, the discount persisted, largely because GBTC shareholders could not redeem their discounted shares for full spot-price crypto. It was an illiquidity discount. Eventually Grayscale won a lawsuit against the SEC in October 2023 that made it a fait accompli that the asset would be allowed to convert into an ETF, thus enabling arbitrageurs to zero-out the discount.

Opportunistic investors who bought GBTC shares at the massive crypto discount reaped major rewards on top of the spot price appreciation.

Key Figure

Here is a list of prominent bitcoin and ethereum DATs and their respective mNAVs (NAV multiple), the metric that tells you the premium or discount placed on a stock. Some of the numbers look very similar to those faced by GBTC during the 2022 crypto winter. On the bitcoin side, the three lowest are Cantor Equity Partners, KindlyMD, and Semler Scientific. But the lowest mNAV among companies tracked is Ether Machine, trading at an mNAV of .13.

An investor can interpret these numbers as how much shareholders value the company vis-a-vis its crypto holdings. An mNAV below 1 means that the company is worth less than its actual crypto.

(Unchained)

What Should the mNAV Be? 

Will GBTC’s history repeat itself? It depends. 

But first it is necessary to determine the natural equilibrium for these products. Unlike an ETF, the answer is not necessarily 1, but it could be close. “I don't know what the right premium discount level is, but it's not multiples,” said Sosnick. “You can argue that if they are able to generate yield from these assets, maybe you should pay a small premium.” 

Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale Investments, agrees. “From an analytical standpoint, in the longer term, mNAVs should be near 1, plus or minus. In private credit, these products will typically trade at a discount to account for the management fee in the product. On the other hand, if the digital asset treasury companies are able to use sophisticated financing sources and to generate more return from their assets in some way that is not available in other structures than conceptually, they could trade slightly above 1 in the longer term.”

And the underlying tokens differ from each other. For instance, ethereum, which can be staked, is considered to be a productive asset. Bitcoin does not have this native functionality. “Ethereum treasury companies can use staking and then restaking to generate additional revenue,” said Fedor Shabalin, a research analyst at B. Riley Securities. “Sharplink Gaming recently reported third quarter earnings where it showed over $10 million of revenue just from staking. Bitcoin doesn't generate yield as a nature of the coin.”

How Can These DATs Return to an mNAV of 1?

But getting back to an mNAV around 1 for these products is not simple. After all, investors have no pathway to buy shares in the company and ask for their proportional amount of crypto like authorized participants in an ETF. 

“The DATs need to have a mechanism to close the gap. With GBTC and ETHE (Grayscale’s Ethereum trust), you had a line of sight to ETF conversion,” said Ram Ahluwalia, founder of Lumida Wealth, in an interview. “Some of these DATs don't have a legal mechanism to close the gap, and some of them expressly prohibit them from selling their tokens to buy back their stock.”

Ahluwalia also made another key point about the different circumstances between today’s market and 2022. “For GBTC and ETHE, the lows in those assets were behind us [by the time of the ETF conversions in 2023]. The presence of discounts alone don't mean you just go buy them. We had discounts in GBTC in 2022, and the spreads kept widening.”

This warning is particularly important as market sentiment remains bearish and some analysts are warning of further drops in the price of crypto. One even hypothesizes that bitcoin could drop to as low as $25,000. If history is any guide, these DATs will continue to underperform their reference assets during such periods of investor angst. 

As demonstrated in the chart below, bitcoin briefly regained some bullish sentiment last week, particularly in the immediate hours after the Federal Reserve dropped its targeted federal funds rate by 25 bps, but its momentum has since stalled as fears of a multi-month downtrend are starting to form without a positive catalyst in the near term.

(TradingView)

Action Items 

Investors seeking value in these companies need to be clear on the specific timeframe that they are targeting with their investment. While it seems logical to assume that almost every DAT will eventually settle on an mNAV around 1, absent a major driver like a hack, fraud, or poor investment, getting there will not be easy. It could take years and perhaps a lot of M&A activity and hostile takeovers that come with forced liquidations. 

How DATs Try to Boost Their Flagging mNAVs, and Why Investors Should Be Careful

This is the kind of deep investigation that flags hidden risks and regulatory shifts before they affect your portfolio, helping you spot opportunities others miss.

Numerous stories have covered the ethical implications of a president trying to make the United States the crypto capital of the planet while building his own Trump‑branded crypto businesses. Most press has focused on the ethics concerns around the Trump family’s crypto dealings and their ties to foreign governments.

This story excited me because we look at how World Liberty Financial actually fares under proposed market structure rules. The results may surprise you. The bill could impose constraints, compliance costs, and new disclosures that make it a net negative for such a politically connected crypto firm. But the Trumps seem to love crypto as much as hotels and resorts, so if they’re here to stay, let’s see what work lies ahead as the U.S. moves from the gray zone into laws and statutes for this burgeoning industry.

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Mantle

Mantle has entered a new phase as the distribution layer connecting TradFi and onchain liquidity. To accelerate this vision, the Mantle Global Hackathon 2025 is inviting developers to build scalable RWA and DeFi products.

Why build on Mantle? It’s an ecosystem built for builders. You get direct access to Bybit’s 7M+ users for potential listing exposure, support from the $4B Mantle Treasury, and mentorship from top VCs like Spartan and Animoca Brands.

With 6 tracks—prioritizing RWAs and RealFi—and a $150,000 prize pool (plus grants), this is your chance to deploy on a high-performance modular L2.

Mantle is building the Blockchain for Banking — where TradFi meets Web3. Explore real-world financial tools, powered fully on-chain.

How the Crypto Market Structure Law Would Expose that Trump’s WLFI Isn't DeFi

Trump’s DeFi platform may force him to choose between regulatory credibility and personal profit, with consequences for the entire industry.

Trump’s WLFI platform and crypto legislation are set to collide (ChatGPT)

Since September 2024, President Trump's sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, have been building their DeFi project, World Liberty Financial, alongside long-time Trump ally Steve Witkoff’s sons, Zach and Alex Witkoff, and inking deals with top crypto firms such as Kraken, Aster Exchange, and Bithumb. 

The market cap of its WLFI token is at $3.52 billion, and its stablecoin USD1 was used as the settlement asset for a $2 billion investment by Abu Dhabi’s MGX into Binance, one of the largest stablecoin-funded crypto deals to date. USD1 has its own market cap of $2.7 billion, which is ranked 6th among stablecoins worldwide by market capitalization.

However, as our reporting shows, the WLFI project is structured in a way that it is highly unlikely to fit the definition of "decentralized" finance in a long-awaited market structure bill, which could create problems between the White House, Congress, and the broader industry. 

The legislation is winding its way through Congress, but the two biggest sticking points center on ethics and DeFi. Already, the White House has signaled that the president will not sign legislation that would include constraints on how he, his family, and inner circle operate in the crypto industry. 

Will Trump sign into law legislation that could handcuff his signature "DeFi" platform? And given that WLFI is centralized, will he and his family comply with the new law or could he try to argue that his project is different from the likes of Coinbase and Kraken? What would it mean for the new legislation if the president and his family seek a special carve-out for themselves? 

This is the kind of deep investigation that flags hidden risks and regulatory shifts before they affect your portfolio, helping you spot opportunities others miss.

As expected, the FOMC lowered the federal funds rate by 25bps to 350-375. 

However, while some watchers feared a market downturn due to what could have been a “bearish cut,” the market tilted upwards due to the Fed’s optimistic economic projections for 2026.

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Mantle

Mantle has entered a new phase as the distribution layer connecting TradFi and onchain liquidity. To accelerate this vision, the Mantle Global Hackathon 2025 is inviting developers to build scalable RWA and DeFi products.

Why build on Mantle? It’s an ecosystem built for builders. You get direct access to Bybit’s 7M+ users for potential listing exposure, support from the $4B Mantle Treasury, and mentorship from top VCs like Spartan and Animoca Brands.

With 6 tracks—prioritizing RWAs and RealFi—and a $150,000 prize pool (plus grants), this is your chance to deploy on a high-performance modular L2.

Mantle is building the Blockchain for Banking — where TradFi meets Web3. Explore real-world financial tools, powered fully on-chain.

Bitcoin Briefly Pops Following Fed Rate Cut, Optimistic 2026 Outlook

The FOMC lowered the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, navigating tensions between still-elevated inflation and growing concern over employment.

As expected, the FOMC lowered the federal funds rate by 25bps (ChatGPT)

The Fed cut rates as expected and Chairman Powell was hopeful about the economy in 2026.

(TradingView)

Markets feared a "bearish cut" with negative commentary. Instead, Powell delivered what one strategist calls a "Goldilocks cut," optimistic on 2026 growth at 2.3% and reduced inflation risks.

But the real surprise: Fed will start buying $40B in T-bills monthly starting Dec 12, injecting liquidity into the system.

The full story reveals:

• Why "not raising is the new cut" according to market reaction

• What the Fed's $40B monthly T-bill purchases mean for Bitcoin (and why it's not QE)

• Where Grayscale expects bitcoin's bottom is and when new highs could hit

• Who's favored to replace Powell in 2026 and what that means for crypto

This is the kind of deep investigation that flags hidden risks and regulatory shifts before they affect your portfolio, helping you spot opportunities others miss.

If you are in crypto long enough, you will get a lesson in volatility. It takes guts and steady hands to ride out the tumult. But if you do, rewards will come. Bitcoin is already getting off of the mat, and traders are betting that it will retake $100K in the near future.

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Mantle

Mantle has entered a new phase as the distribution layer connecting TradFi and onchain liquidity. To accelerate this vision, the Mantle Global Hackathon 2025 is inviting developers to build scalable RWA and DeFi products.

Why build on Mantle? It’s an ecosystem built for builders. You get direct access to Bybit’s 7M+ users for potential listing exposure, support from the $4B Mantle Treasury, and mentorship from top VCs like Spartan and Animoca Brands.

With 6 tracks—prioritizing RWAs and RealFi—and a $150,000 prize pool (plus grants), this is your chance to deploy on a high-performance modular L2.

Mantle is building the Blockchain for Banking — where TradFi meets Web3. Explore real-world financial tools, powered fully on-chain.

Bitcoin Resets Above $90,000, but Can Bulls Keep the Momentum?

Bitcoin recovered after recently falling to $80,000. But now that things have stabilized, bullish traders are betting that it will retake the $100,000 mark.

Bitcoin is setting its sights on $100,000 again (ChatGPT)

Bitcoin hit extreme oversold levels in late November, the kind that typically signals a bottom is forming.

Since then, multiple technical indicators have reversed. The asset recaptured its multi-year uptrend and key momentum signals are shifting from bearish to neutral.

(TradingView)

The full investigation reveals:

• What price levels options traders are targeting for December expiry

• Where bitcoin's fear and greed gauge stands compared to when it was above $100K

• How much leverage got wiped out and what that means for price movement

• Which technical signal warns more downside could still happen

This is the kind of deep investigation that flags hidden risks and regulatory shifts before they affect your portfolio, helping you spot opportunities others miss.