From Yesterday's Simply Bitcoin Live | Episode 1620
The Numbers
Price dipped on weekend cyberattack fears, right as Strive's latest buy landed in the same dip.
The News
Strive bought 6,182 Bitcoin last week for about $511 million, an average price of $82,732. That brings their total holding to 43,000 Bitcoin, right behind 21 Capital's 43,514 and closing in fast on Metaplanet's 44,000. At the pace Strive has been buying the last few weeks, they could take third place on the treasury leaderboard within a week or two.
Strategy didn't buy a single coin this week. Instead, Michael Saylor spent $25 million buying back Stretch, the preferred stock that's been crawling toward its $100 par price after cratering to $72 in June. Stretch closed the week at $99.58. Once it clears par, Saylor's old buying mechanism turns back on.
The treasury race got interesting the exact week the king decided to sit on his hands.
Galaxy's Alex Thorn published a note arguing the bear market ended in June and Bitcoin is now in the same accumulation phase that preceded every prior advance. His case: asset managers have cut their net long CME futures exposure by 57% from the all time high week, and spot ETFs have added 87,000 Bitcoin since the June low.
Thorn's own line for it: the fast money has left, the base stayed, and everything else is priced for perfection. Bitcoin would need a 53% rally just to retake its October 2025 high, but the report treats that gap as opportunity, not a warning. The debasement case, a government running $2 trillion deficits at 5% yields, only got stronger while price went nowhere.
The crowd that's scared right now is the same crowd the report says already left.
Over the weekend, AI driven cyberattacks disrupted financial services in Japan, exposed a vulnerability in Tailscale connected Bitcoin nodes, and hit a flaw in Electrum. The Pentagon told US military bases to prepare for 90 days without outside connectivity.
Bitcoin is money built for the internet, and the internet almost didn't make it through the weekend. Price held close to $80,000 through all of it. That's a stronger signal than the panic headlines gave it credit for.
The Culture
Guest SegmentDinesh D'Souza, the conservative author and filmmaker who served in the Reagan White House, came on after inviting Simply Bitcoin's Dante Cook onto his own podcast. He got into Bitcoin after a neighbor, an economist, handed him The Bitcoin Standard. He says he now holds a meaningful share of his portfolio in it.
His sharpest point needed no chart. His parents gave him $500 when he immigrated from India in 1978. Had he held that cash instead of spending it, he figures it would buy about $85 to $90 worth of goods today. That's the entire inflation argument, made by a guy who spent decades inside Republican policy circles, not Bitcoin ones.
Soft money did to his $500 what no recession ever could.
Strive is closing in on the treasury podium while Strategy sits this week out. Plus, a Reagan era conservative explains why his own $500 convinced him more than any chart did.
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