Reddit weighs using eyeball-scanning tech created by World crypto project: report

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

It's Friday! Bitcoin's network activity is looking like a ghost town as institutional participation shifts more transactions off-chain. Still, rising settlement volumes and larger average transaction sizes suggest whales are increasingly dominating the base layer, according to Glassnode.

In today's newsletter, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino teases an open-source local password manager, Kraken launches a bitcoin "staking" service, David Bailey's Nakamoto raises its bitcoin treasury target to $763 million, and more.

Meanwhile, Reddit is reportedly in talks to use the Sam Altman-backed crypto project World's eyeball-scanning Orbs for human verification.

Let's get started.

Tether CEO says it's 'time to ditch the cloud' amid massive online data leak

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said it's time to move beyond storing passwords in the cloud after 16 billion credentials from Apple, Facebook, Google, government services, and other platforms were leaked in what is believed to be the largest data breach ever.

• Online security experts described the leak as a "blueprint for mass exploitation," warning that bad actors could use the data to launch hacks or phishing attacks, including against crypto users.
• "The cloud has failed us. Again," Ardoino posted to X on Thursday. "16 billion passwords just leaked. It's time to ditch the cloud." Ardoino stated that such cloud-based vulnerabilities are why Tether has been developing PearPass — a fully local, open-source password manager that stores all data on users' devices.
• "No cloud. No servers. No leaks. Ever," he wrote, adding that PearPass will launch soon.
• The stablecoin firm previously launched Pear Credit, a peer-to-peer lending platform, in collaboration with Holepunch and Synonym and is also developing Tether AI, an open-source, offline-capable AI runtime.
• Ardoino said his mission is to build "human-first" technology that can operate locally and function in disaster scenarios like World War III.

Kraken launches a bitcoin 'staking' service

Crypto exchange Kraken has launched bitcoin "staking" with up to 1% yield via DeFi protocol Babylon, enabling users to earn passive rewards on their BTC holdings without wrapping, bridging, or lending.

• While Babylon is marketed as a "bitcoin-native staking protocol," it does not enable staking in the way traditional proof-of-stake systems do.
• Instead, Babylon lets users bond their BTC via time-lock scripts on Bitcoin's base layer to help secure PoS chains in exchange for rewards.
• Even though Babylon avoids wrapped BTC and Kraken provides a more user-friendly interface, participants still face lockup immobility, offchain coordination risks, reward token volatility, and centralized custodial exposure.

David Bailey's Nakamoto raises bitcoin treasury target to $763 million

Bitcoin holding firm Nakamoto and telehealth startup KindlyMD have raised their BTC treasury target to $763 million following an additional $51.5 million in private placement commitments.

• Founder David Bailey said the latest round of capital was raised in 72 hours, with plans to convert the entire sum into bitcoin post-merger approval.
• The firms originally outlined a $710 million raise in May — $510 million through PIPE funding and $200 million via convertible notes.
• "We continue to execute our strategy to raise as much capital as possible to acquire as much bitcoin as possible," Bailey, who also runs Bitcoin Magazine, added.
• The deal follows a growing trend of firms mimicking Strategy's playbook to build bitcoin treasuries via debt and equity raises.

France hit by 10th crypto 'wrench attack' of 2025

A 23-year-old crypto investor was kidnapped near Paris on Tuesday, marking France's 10th known "wrench attack" and the 32nd globally in 2025, according to Le Parisien and data tracked by Jameson Lopp.

• Attackers forced the victim to call his partner to hand over a Ledger hardware wallet and €5,000 in cash before releasing him in a nearby town.
• This year is on pace to become the most violent on record for crypto holders, with wrench attacks rising alongside market gains; the previous peak was 36 known incidents in 2021.
• French officials are ramping up discussions with the crypto industry after a series of high-profile assaults, including the kidnapping and torture of Ledger co-founder David Balland and his wife in January.

TikTok slams Rep. Sherman over $300 million Trump memecoin accusation

TikTok slammed Rep. Brad Sherman's claim that its owners bought $300 million in TRUMP memecoins, calling it "patently false and irresponsible."

• Sherman accused TikTok of effectively bribing President Trump to delay its looming U.S. ban, but the congressman appeared to have confused the deal with a separate company, GD Culture Group.
• GDC, a small-cap firm with no official ties to TikTok's parent company ByteDance but heavily reliant on the platform for content production, announced plans to buy TRUMP last month as part of its crypto treasury strategy — seemingly sparking the confusion.

Over the next 7 days

• U.S. jobless claims figures are out on Thursday. U.S. PCE data follows on Friday.
• Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is scheduled to speak on Tuesday and Thursday. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will speak on Tuesday and Wednesday.
• BTC Prague concludes in the Czech Republic.
• EigenLayer, IOTA, and Moca Network are among the crypto projects set for token unlocks.

Never miss a beat with The Block's daily digest of the most influential events happening across the digital asset ecosystem.

Disclaimer: This article was produced with the assistance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5/4 and reviewed and edited by our editorial team.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Crypto analyst Colin has highlighted the Bitcoin price’s deviation from the Global M2 money supply, raising concerns that the bull run may be over. The analyst quickly addressed concerns, noting how such deviations usually happen at some point but don’t invalidate the macro trend. 

Analyst Highlights Bitcoin Price’s Deviation From Global M2 Money Supply

In an X post, Colin revealed that the Bitcoin price has deviated from the global M2 money supply. He noted that this deviation was short-term in an otherwise broad correlation. The analyst added that this current deviation is similar to the position that BTC was in February 2025. 

Colin remarked that this development doesn’t mean the M2 is broken, just as it wasn’t broken back in February. Instead, he claimed that it just means that market participants haven’t zoomed out enough and are allowing for the non-correlated periods. The analyst added that non-correlation between the Bitcoin price and global M2 money supply happens 20% of the time. 

He then alluded to the regular chart, which shows the strong correlation between the Bitcoin price and the global M2 money supply. Colin explained that the M2 is “directionally predictive” for BTC and that it is not 1:1 price-related. The analyst further remarked that the M2 does not predict a specific BTC price. 

Instead, the global M2 money supply only predicts the market direction, with about 80% accuracy. Colin added that the Bitcoin price has its y-axis while the M2 is on a different y-axis. He also opined that the M2 may decouple from BTC near the cycle top. Although the analyst didn’t provide a timeline for when the cycle top will be, his analysis indicates that the cycle top is not yet in and the bull run isn’t over. 

Money Supply Shows No Need To Worry About BTC Price

In an X post, market expert Raoul Pal suggested that the Bitcoin price’s correlation with the money supply shows that there is no need to worry about the current price action. He remarked that if 89% of BTC’s price action is explained by global liquidity, then by definition, almost all “news” and “narrative” is noise. 

This suggests that the current geopolitical risks, heightened by the Israel-Iran conflict, are unlikely to impact the Bitcoin price as much as expected. Trading firm QCP Capital recently noted that the flagship crypto has yet to show full-blown panic, which shows how much the asset has matured. 

The firm remarked that BTC’s resilient price action appears underpinned by continued institutional accumulation, with companies like Strategy and Metaplanet buying the dip. The Bitcoin ETFs also continue to record positive flows. 

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around $104,700, down in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

By Ian Salisbury

Index fund investors might have little interest in betting on cryptocurrencies, as they seek solid returns from well-known stock market benchmarks. But that doesn't mean they don't own Bitcoin.

Index funds are designed to give investors a way to invest in the stock market, which tends to rise over time — without making big bets on what will turn out to be "The Next Big Thing." Investing in crypto is culturally the opposite, with its celebration of bold speculation and trendy new digital assets.

But recently Bitcoin has been finding its way into many index funds thanks to a backdoor of sorts — MicroStrategy, the erstwhile software company that has turned itself into a vessel for Bitcoin. The company owns 592,100 Bitcoins valued at more than $62 billion — a hoard it continues to grow with proceeds from the sale of preferred stock, including $1.2 billion worth issued earlier this month.

MicroStrategy's market capitalization, which stood at $104 billion on Friday, makes the company large enough to qualify for a number of popular stock market indexes. These include the Russell 1000 and 3000 and the Nasdaq 100. (It's worth noting MicroStrategy isn't part of the S&P 500, whose members are selected by an index committee at S&P Global Indices.)

Still MicroStrategy (and thus its Bitcoin) has earned a place in a number of popular funds. The $337 billion Invesco QQQ Trust has about 0.53% of its portfolio invested in MicroStrategy, according to Morningstar data. While that may not sound like much, that's about on par with the fund's holdings of major names like Intel, Mondelez International, and DoorDash.

Other funds like the $1.8 trillion Vanguard Total Stock Market Index ETF and the $15 billion iShares Russell 3000 ETF also have small holdings, amounting to less than 0.2% of fund assets.

Given those index funds' enormous size, even a tiny portion of their overall portfolios can translate into billions in investment dollars for MicroStrategy. A recent report by J.P. Morgan's Global Markets Strategy team suggests that, collectively, index funds own about $14 billion of MicroStrategy stock.

Add in active mutual funds and institutional investors — which don't invest in index mutual funds but still track indexes as benchmarks — and overall fund holdings of MicroStrategy reach close to $50 billion, J.P. Morgan estimates.

One potential problem for the stock: Lately Bitcoin's price has been rising, while MicroStrategy has been steadily buying more of it. Both factors have worked in concert to push up MicroStrategy's market value. Meanwhile, the higher market value has led index funds to buy more shares.

However, that dynamic could one day reverse. If Bitcoin falls and MicroStrategy's market cap sinks, index funds could quickly turn from buyers into sellers, creating a possible pile-on.

"The more Bitcoin MicroStrategy buys, the higher the Bitcoin price, thus inducing even higher market cap and even higher weights in equity indices," wrote J.P. Morgan's strategy team led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. "This self-reinforcing circle increases the risk of a boom and bust cycle, making MicroStrategy investors less comfortable with buying MicroStrategy stock."

MicroStrategy didn't respond to a request for comment.

Index fund investors might not have much interest in Bitcoin — or MicroStrategy. But buying an index fund means letting the market decide. These investors can at least take solace: At well under 1% of any particular index fund's portfolio, any potential losses from MicroStrategy won't sting much.

Write to Ian Salisbury at ian.salisbury@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.