Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced a series of product updates and strategic moves Wednesday, including the launch of lending proof-of-reserves, a new “volatility-proof” bitcoin-backed loan structure built with Tether, and a $2.1 billion credit facility. 

He also said he supports a proposal by Tether Investments to merge Strike with Twenty-One Capital and bitcoin miner Elektron Energy.

Mallers said Strike’s bitcoin-backed loan and line-of-credit business has grown since launch, with users drawn to the ability to borrow against bitcoin rather than sell it. 

He described bitcoin as a savings account for many customers and said Strike cut its rate tiers across the board….

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Morgan Stanley launched its bitcoin exchange-traded product, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), into a market it believes is still in its infancy. 

At a panel on Wednesday moderated by Tyler Evans, Amy Oldenburg, the bank’s head of digital assets, spent the better part of an hour making a case for bitcoin that few clients have heard in full, and said that gap is the industry’s most urgent problem.

“We have to start with bitcoin,” Oldenburg told the audience, citing the asset’s roughly 1.5 trillion dollar market cap and its distance from the rest of the crypto landscape. 

She was careful to draw a line between bitcoin and crypto as a broad category, a…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Strategy CEO Phong Le and Blockstream CEO Adam Back appeared Wednesday on a panel moderated by Natalie Brunell, covering Bitcoin treasury strategy, tokenization, digital credit, and the enduring mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto. 

The conversation drew a picture of a financial system in transition, with Bitcoin at its center.

Le opened with a striking observation about Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings. The company now holds 818,334, putting it second behind only one entity. 

“There is only one individual entity with more Bitcoin than Strategy,” Le said. “That’s Satoshi.” 

The firm is on pace to reach 1 million BTC in the next couple of months, a milestone that would…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki and tech entrepreneur Jack Dorsey took the stage Wednesday to discuss The Six Billion Dollar Man, Jarecki’s documentary on Julian Assange, and the role the bitcoin community may play in getting it to the public — a conversation that stretched from censorship and surveillance to Satoshi Nakamoto and the original principles of the internet.

Dorsey joined the panel virtually. The setting itself carried weight: Jarecki told the crowd that the casino sitting close to where he stood had ties to the private security firm that spied on Assange while he lived inside London’s Ecuadorian Embassy — a revelation the documentary places at the center of its…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

At Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas, Eric Trump and Calamos Investments CEO John Koudounis sat down with Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas for a panel that covered bitcoin’s maturation from speculative instrument to global reserve contender. 

The conversation ranged across institutional adoption, government debanking, currency debasement, and the challenge of winning over ordinary investors who still view bitcoin as too risky, too complex, or both. 

It was a panel that reflected how much the room has changed — a mix of long-time bitcoin believers and fresh institutional money that, a decade ago, would have dismissed this gathering entirely.

Trump: Bitcoin is a… Read more on BitcoinMagazine

For CJ Konstantinos, the case for Bitcoin-backed mortgages is personal. In 2019, he paid 100 Bitcoin for a house. That bitcoin is now worth roughly $7.6 million and he says he can’t sell his house for more than $500,000. 

At the time, it was the kind of transaction most people in traditional finance would have called reckless. Now, Konstantinos runs Peoples Reserve and speaks at the world’s largest Bitcoin conference to explain why doing it again — this time through structured bitcoin lending products — makes sense for a growing number of holders.

“Bitcoin found me and smacked me up the head,” Konstantinos said Wednesday during a panel titled “From HODL to Home:…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine

Steak ‘n Shake Chief MAHA Officer Michael Boes told attendees at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference in Las Vegas that Bitcoin has become a core driver of the chain’s business performance, pointing to 2 million new customers, dramatic cost reductions, and a sweeping menu overhaul tied directly to savings from bitcoin payments.

Boes cited how the chain launched its Bitcoin payment platform on May 16, 2025, via the Lightning Network, and the results came fast. Same-store sales rose 11% quarter over quarter in Q2 2025 and accelerated to 15% in Q3 2025, outpacing major rivals including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Domino’s. 

He called it the highest same-store sales growth of any…

Read more on BitcoinMagazine