Running It Hot: How Trump’s Stimulus Could Ignite Bitcoin’s Next Breakout

Happy Monday Bitcoiners - it’s Bam with another weekly update!

Each week, we condense the most impactful news releases into a concise, easy-to-read update so you’re always in the know!

Notable events this week include 👇

• Samourai dev gets the book thrown at him with maximum sentence.

• My First Bitcoin brings its education initiative to the global stage.

• “Time-travelling” options trader takes a big hit on a $444K BTC call.

Let’s dive in ⚡

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Latest News 📰

🙌 Adoption

• Satsconf, Brazil’s largest Bitcoin event, kicks off featuring a Liquid BTC bootcamp and the world’s first Simplicity smart contract hackathon.

• My First Bitcoin announces its next chapter, shifting from local education in El Salvador to a global mission empowering communities and educators worldwide with Bitcoin teaching tools and resources.

• Josh Mandell, the legendary options trader who correctly called Bitcoin’s $84K price target on March 14, lost over $1.2 million betting on options tied to his prediction that Bitcoin would reach $444K by 11/8.

⚖️ Legal

• Samourai Wallet developer Keonne Rodriguez was sentenced to five years in federal prison, the maximum penalty, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

• DeFi protocol Balancer suffers a $100+ million exploit after attackers used a rounding-error bug in its V2 Composable Stable Pools to drain funds through thousands of micro-gain transactions.

• SBF appears before an appeals court seeking to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence. His lawyers argue he was “wrongly convicted” in a rush to judgment fueled by the press.

📈 Markets

• 99.5% of spot Bitcoin ETF investors held their positions through the recent 20% drawdown in Bitcoin’s price, signaling growing conviction among institutional holders.

• Jim Chanos is successfully unwinding his Short MSTR/Long Bitcoin trade after mNAV compression from 2.5x to 1.23x, as MSTR’s premium dropped from $80B to $15B and shares fell nearly 50%.

• JPMorgan reports holding 5.28 million shares of BlackRock’s IBIT ETF, worth $343 million as of Sept. 30, a 64% increase since June. Company analysts have set a BTC price target of $170K within 6–12 months.

🏦 Treasury

• Strategy launches $STRE, a euro-denominated preferred share designed to pay regular dividends, raising $715 million in its first European offering and debut in foreign markets.

• Strive launches $SATA, a new Perpetual Preferred Stock targeting $100 per share with an initial 12% annual dividend yield, paid monthly.

• Sequans sells 970 BTC to redeem half its $189M convertible debt, cutting liabilities to $94.5M. They are the first BTCTC to sell, as CEO Georges Karam calls it a “tactical move to unlock shareholder value.”

⛏️ Mining

• Japan joins the list of countries mining Bitcoin with state-backed resources, per VanEck.

• Solar-powered Bitcoin miner doubles as a hair dryer for a freshly washed dog, proof that waste heat can be both renewable and adorable.

• Bitcoin miners face renewed pressure as hash price (their key revenue metric) drops to about $42 per PH/s, nearing the $40 “survival” threshold that could force smaller operators offline.

🗳️ Politics

• Kazakhstan plans a $500M–$1B national crypto reserve fund, seeded with seized assets and Bitcoin mining proceeds, investing through ETFs and digital finance equities rather than holding Bitcoin directly.

• Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim uses the Bitcoin Lightning Network to buy a Coke from a vending machine. He has also advocated for the city to hold BTC in its reserves, a first for Canada.

• France advances a 1% annual tax on “unproductive wealth,” including Bitcoin, art, and real estate. The tax would apply even to unsold assets, reviving a debate over the abolished ISF wealth tax.

🧠 Bitcoin Trivia 🧠

Bam’s 2 Sats 🧢

When Bitcoin Treasury Companies Start to Blink

About a year ago, MSTR rebranded as Strategy, announcing multi-billion-dollar Bitcoin purchases and an ambitious $42B raise to buy more.

That bold move and its parabolic stock rally sparked a wave of imitators, as institutions began their own Bitcoin Treasury Company journeys.

What was once seen as a sure-fire bullish trade has now flipped bearish. Everyone cheered institutional adoption until buying slowed, or worse, turned into selling at a loss.

Well, it looks like that moment has arrived. This week, Sequans became the first to dump Bitcoin at a loss, though they dressed it up as “Strategic Asset Relocation,” meant to “enhance flexibility” and “reduce Debt-to-NAV.”

Come on, guys, we know what this is. You took a bet and lost. You jumped on what you thought was a gravy train instead of making a calculated investment as a French chip manufacturer. Maybe you believed big buyers like MSTR and the ETFs would shield you, but that safety net couldn’t protect you from poor capital allocation.

And now, the broader market, at least from an X (Twitter) perspective, feels as bearish as it’s been since April.

OGs have been quietly selling all year, right as everyone else turned bullish. Companies were loading up, countries were teasing national reserves, and yet the veterans were exiting. The remaining bulls call this Bitcoin’s “IPO moment,” with large stacks changing hands from early investors to new ones.

Either the OGs are once again the smartest money in the room, or this cycle truly is different with a recovery forming. What’s certain is that roughly 188 treasury companies are now holding heavy bags, built on shaky models and with fewer institutional buyers to cushion the fall. As always, when the market dips, the tourists vanish first and the pros sell before anyone else sees it coming.

All of this shows how far we still have to go in Bitcoin education. Institutions are the new retail. They overleverage, misunderstand Bitcoin, and treat it like any other trade. Not all, but some are repeating the same rookie mistakes we once made. Even the Wall Street Journal has joined the bearish chorus, declaring that “this year’s hottest crypto trade is crumbling.”

Bitcoin humbles everyone. Let’s hope most of these corporations are real Bitcoiners, thinking long term rather than chasing short-term gains that could trigger another round of selling.

But just as it seemed the rug was being pulled from under the companies that bet big on Bitcoin this year, Trump stepped in with a few statements that made it clear he plans to run the economy hot.

The Trump administration announced plans for 50-year mortgages, designed to help younger buyers enter the housing market while keeping prices inflated for current owners.

Trump also floated the idea of a “tariff dividend,” essentially a $2,000 stimulus check for Americans, excluding “high-income people.”

This is exactly the inflationary impulse Bitcoin was waiting for. The price climbed toward $105K at the time of writing, confirming a double bounce off the weekly lows near $99K.

After Republicans lost several off-year elections this week, Trump appears set to keep the heat on heading into 2026 and the pivotal midterms that will decide whether he becomes a lame duck or continues reshaping America through the rest of his term.

Between the possible replacement of Jerome Powell, rising stimulus, and the CLARITY Act, several bullish catalysts are lining up for 2026 that could boost Bitcoin and convince treasury companies to hold on for dear life instead of selling just before the party begins.

The Bitcoin treasuries may be blinking, but Bitcoin isn’t. It keeps producing blocks, protecting property rights, and rewarding those who look beyond “Number Go Up” toward “Freedom Go Up.”

Stay safe and keep on stacking!
-Bam

Weekly Live Stream 🚨

Join Rob Wallace live with Andrew Poelstra, Director of Research at Blockstream, as they unpack the latest headlines and explore opcodes, Bitcoin privacy, and smart contracts on Bitcoin.