Crypto
SATOSHI NAKOMOTO
A bronze statue of Satoshi Nakamoto (Attila Kisbenedek/Getty Images)

New Strategy competitors American Bitcoin and Nakamoto Holdings each announce mergers

Nakamoto’s merger with KindlyMD has sent the stock surging over 300%.

The field to become the next Strategy is starting to get crowded. Eric Trump-backed American Bitcoin (a subsidiary of Hut 8) has announced it’s merging with Gryphon Digital Mining and will trade under the ticker “ABTC.”

“Our vision for American Bitcoin is to create the most investable bitcoin accumulation platform in the market,” Eric Trump, cofounder and chief strategy officer of American Bitcoin, said in a press release.  

The anticipated closing target is “as early as Q3,” according to the release.

Also this morning, healthcare company KindlyMD announced a merger with bitcoin investment company Nakamoto Holdings, the new bitcoin-native venture launched by Trump crypto adviser David Bailey.  

Shares of KindlyMD skyrocketed more than 600% in premarket trading upon the announcement and are still trading up over 275% as of 11:45 a.m. ET. 

Nakamoto CEO and founder David Bailey told Sherwood News that the securitization of bitcoin, through entities like Nakamoto, is “the defining financial shift of our era.”

“Nakamoto aims to elevate bitcoin to every public and private corporate balance sheet around the world. We’re at the center of the global public markets seeking to provide investor-friendly structures they can own to accelerate bitcoin adoption,” Bailey said. 

The new company raised $510 million via a PIPE deal and $200 million in convertible notes, “marking [the] largest capital raise to launch a Bitcoin Treasury and the largest PIPE for any public crypto-related transaction,” the press release said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if other companies similar to KindlyMD start exploring the use of crypto and even others in different industries such as healthcare, gaming, and the like,” Alan Orwick, cofounder of Quai Network, said.

Last month, Jack Mallers, the CEO of Strike, Tether, and SoftBank Group launched a new bitcoin-native company, Twenty One, via a merger with Cantor Equity Partners. The investor presentation says the company intends to offer a “potentially superior vehicle for investors seeking capital-efficient bitcoin exposure” than Strategy’s.

As for Michael Saylor’s Strategy, it’s not slowing down and bought 13,390 bitcoin for $1.34 billion this morning. It now holds 568,840 bitcoin. Japanese Metaplanet also acquired 1,241 bitcoin for $126.7 million yesterday, now holding 6,796 bitcoin.

This all comes against the backdrop of the newly announced US-China tariff deal, which boosted bitcoin’s price this morning and some predict will lead to a new all-time high.

“Risk assets are back to a state of euphoria on the news that the US and China have reached an agreement. Bitcoin, which had been acting a lot like gold over the last few weeks, has now swiftly decoupled from that safe haven narrative and is moving in tandem with risk assets again. I wouldn’t be surprised if BTC surpasses its previous all-time high of $109,588 in the coming days,” Nic Puckrin, founder of Coin Bureau, said.

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Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter. 

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows. 

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

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SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework. 

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

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