← Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
News Block: Bitcoin Price Slides, Harvard Doubles Down on IBIT, First Central Bank to Buy Bitcoin
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Welcome to the Coinsories news block, powered exclusively by LEDN. I'm Natalie Brunel and in about 10 minutes or less, I'll provide you with insightful updates on bitcoin, financial markets and the global economy. Everything you need to know in one block. Let's go. President Trump finally signed the funding bill that reopened the federal government after the longest shutdown in U.S. history. But for markets, it turned into a buy the rumor, sell sell the news moment. The market had rallied on hopes a deal was coming and then sold off once the headlines actually hit. Against that backdrop, bitcoin continues to pull back from its recent all time high. Just above $126,000, it's now trading in the mid-90s, roughly 25% below the peak. And it's not just bitcoin. We've seen a broader risk off move across US equities with both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 declining as investors de risk around stretched valuations, interest rate uncertainty and lingering out from the shutdown. On top of that macro landscape, Bitcoin has its own internal cycle dynamics playing out. On chain data shows a lot of the recent sell pressure is coming from older long term holders taking profits. Old holders selling into strength is exactly what you'd expect to see in any bull market. But whenever someone sells, someone else is choosing to buy. So who is buying right now? What we're seeing in the latest SEC filings is that more and more of the current bitcoin demand is more institutional than retail. And institutions are not running away from this volatility. They're leaning into it. Harvard's endowment, for example, increased its position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust IBIT by more than 250% in the third quarter. It now holds roughly 6.8 million shares worth about $360 million. That makes IBIT Harvard's largest disclosed U.S. holding. And analysts estimate the stake is around 1% of the world's largest academic endowment, putting Harvard among the top IBIT holders. Now, quick side note. I'm going to be sharing insights from BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robby Michnick about IBIT's success and the institutional bid for bitcoin. That episode is dropping this week, so keep an eye out for it. Now Harvard isn't alone. Emory University also doubled down on its bitcoin allocation. It increased its stake in the grayscale bitcoin mini Trust by nearly 100% since June. They now hold more than 1 million shares, a position worth about $40 million today. An interesting detail in the filing is that Emry also opened a sizable new position in BlackRock's iShares Gold Trust. In other words, these endowments are clearly leaning into the debasement trade, adding to both their bitcoin and gold positions. We're seeing the same story play out at the sovereign level. A recent filing from Al Warda Investments, a sovereign wealth vehicle in Abu Dhabi, showed it now owns about 8 million shares of IBIT, more than a 230% increase from the position it first reported in June. And one of the biggest players in the space is about to go public. Grayscale Investments, one of the largest digital asset managers, just made its US IPO filing public. According to its S1, the firm generated more than $200 million in net income over the first nine months of 2025 and manages around $35 billion across more than 40 digital asset products. Grayscale plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker Gray following this year's IPOs from Circle Gemini and Bullish when you put all of this together, here's the big picture. Yes, Bitcoin is down about 25% from the highs. Yes, longtime holders are taking profits and handing coins to new owners. But on the other side of that selling, you now have endowments, sovereign wealth funds and multibillion dollar asset managers increasing their exposure and even going public on the back of bitcoin related businesses. Volatility shakes out weak hands, but it also redistributes bitcoin from early adopters to the deepest slow moving pools of capital in the world. That's what we're watching happen in real time. Long term investors and builders who actually understand Bitcoin's value proposition tend to see drawdowns like this as an opportunity, not danger. As Michael Saylor likes to say, if you want to ride the rocket, you've got to be prepared to pull the G's. And right now the price action is the G force. The rocket fuel is institutions, endowments and sovereign funds quietly buying more bitcoin while everyone else panics at the red candles. So strap in and don't let the institution scoop up all the cheap sats. Let's get the hard working middle class onboarded and growing their bitcoin positions during these dips. Need cash but don't want to sell your Bitcoin? LEDN is the global leader in Bitcoin backed loans, issuing over $9 billion in loans since 2018 and they were the first to offer proof of reserves With Leden, you get custody loans, no credit checks, no monthly payments and more. Visit Leden IO Natalie to learn more and get a quarter percentage point off your first loan. Alright. As all of this institutional demand is building in the background, we just crossed another first for Bitcoin. For the first time, a central bank has openly put Bitcoin on its balance sheet. The Czech National bank, or CNB, announced it has created a $1 million test portfolio of digital assets. And that portfolio is mostly Bitcoin, but includes some stablecoins and tokenized deposits. Okay, so in pure dollar terms it's a tiny position, but symbolically it's a huge deal. A central bank is now directly buying and custodying Bitcoin to learn how to use it and how it behaves in a well diversified portfolio. To be clear, the CNB has said that this isn't part of its official foreign exchange reserves and that the total amount won't be actively increased. This is sort of a sandbox. The goal is to get some hands on experience and experiment with Bitcoin. But what makes this especially interesting is the journey that got them here. The CNB's governor posted a message arguing that Bitcoin shouldn't be lumped in with other crypto tokens and that central bankers should study it and explore the technology it's built on. That governor wrote, quote, studying Bitcoin won't harm us. On the contrary, it will strengthen us. The board agreed to study the idea and and after months of internal debate, they've finally pulled the trigger on a live pilot. And here's where this gets really important from an investor's perspective. Pilot programs like this might start small and cautious, but there's still an acknowledgement that Bitcoin is now a serious asset that has to be studied, modeled and stress tested alongside traditional reserves. And if you look at history, in many portfolio studies, Bitcoin has improved risk adjusted returns by adding both diversification and asymmetric upside. So when a central bank builds a test portfolio and asks does this help us diversify, does it change our risk profile? I think we're going to find that Bitcoin passes that test with flying colors. This is what adoption looks like in the real world. First they ignore it, then they ridicule it, then they study it and eventually they start buying, even if it's only a million dollars to start. And while central banks are tiptoeing in with million dollar test portfolios, the private sector is basically smashing the on button. So Sofi bank just became the first and only nationally chartered FDIC insured U.S. bank to roll out crypto trading directly to consumers. That means for millions of SoFi customers, buying Bitcoin is something they can do right next to their checking, savings and credit cards in the SoFi app. And while SoFi is helping to bring Bitcoin into the traditional banking system, Block is pushing it out into everyday life. This week Block flipped the switch on what might be one of the biggest moments yet for Bitcoin payments. Square is now enabling more than 4 million US merchants to accept Bitcoin payments at checkout with zero processing fees until 2027. If a square merchant opts in, they can now decide exactly how they want to get paid. Accept Bitcoin and keep Bitcoin, Accept Bitcoin and auto convert to dollars or let customers pay in dollars from Cash App while the merchant stack still receives Bitcoin on their end. In other words, a customer may have never owned Bitcoin themselves, but their coffee shop, barber or favorite taco stand can now quietly start stacking sats every time they tap Pay with Cash App, Jack Dorsey tweeted quote our sellers can now receive BTC to btc, BTC to Fiat, Fiat to BTC or Fiat to Fiat. Millions of Cash App users will now be able to scan a Lightning QR code and choose to fund that payment from a normal USD balance. The app does the conversion in the background, routes it over the Lightning network, and the merchant gets paid instantly in Bitcoin or USD, their choice. You can also find a new Bitcoin map inside Cash app that helps people find local merchants who accept it. Square's launch bridges Bitcoin into the real economy and lets merchants opt into a Bitcoin standard at their own pace. On top of that, it gives them faster settlement, no chargebacks and lower fees and than traditional cards. When more business owners prefer to earn and hold Bitcoin because it settles fast, can't be debased and has asymmetric upside, it starts to flip the usual Gresham's Law story on its head. Historically, people spend the so called bad money and hoard the so called good money. But in a world where merchants want the good money, you slowly move toward a system where the strongest money is what people demand to be paid. In this process will take years, years, even decades to unfold. But as fiat currencies are debased and Bitcoin preserves purchasing power over time, the rational choice for more and more merchants will be to demand payment in Bitcoin. That's why we may look back on a launch like this as a historic inflection point for bitcoin adoption. And when you put this all together, SoFi bringing Bitcoin into a nationally chartered bank block, turning on Bitcoin payments for millions of merchants. You can see the theme. Bitcoin is graduating from something you speculate on in an app to something you can actually earn, spend and accept in the real world. The next step is on all of us. If you value businesses that accept bitcoin, then pull up Cash app's Bitcoin map and go support them whether you're spending sats or dollars. Because every time a small business stacks some SATs or someone buys a coffee or a steak with bitcoin, it chips away at the old story of you can't use it as money and brings that Bitcoin standard future a little bit closer to reality. Don't stress about the pullbacks, guys. Stack sats and stay humble. That's it for the News block. Your weekly Bitcoin and economic news update. Powered exclusively by ledn. I'm Natalie Brunel. Make sure you're subscribed to Coinstory so you never miss an episode. This show is for educational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. Until next time, keep stacking. Sam.