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Michael Saylor’s bitcoin buying strategy had both believers and skeptics. But a new rival just emerged, already holding nearly $4 billion BTC on its balance sheet—and it’s a bullish sign, according to at least one Wall Street analyst.

When SoftBank, Tether, and Cantor Fitzgerald unveiled plans to launch a new bitcoin investment company called Twenty One, structured explicitly around holding bitcoin as its primary business, many called it a significant rival to Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR). Its day-one bitcoin balance sheet holding would rank it as the third-largest publicly held bitcoin treasury on day one.

In traditional finance, one could argue that such a big competition could hamper a dominant company’s market share and capital raise opportunities, especially since Twenty One is already potentially launching with over 42,000 BTC at launch (worth nearly $4 billion at spot price).

However, TD Cowen analysts Lance Vitanza and Jonnathan Navarrete see it as the exact opposite: “The proposed launch of Twenty One reflects the most-meaningful validation of Strategy’s bitcoin treasury operations to date,” leaving the analysts “incrementally bullish” on the stock.

The analysts added that the new rival could even convert MSTR’s biggest skeptics, institutional investors, into believers in Saylor’s bitcoin buying strategy. The move would also increase demand for bitcoin from a high-profile entrant, which could outweigh any pressure on Strategy’s cost of capital and attract more capital into buying bitcoin.

“Certainly this is what Michael Saylor professes to believe,” the analysts wrote, pointing to the Strategy founder’s long-standing push for more companies to adopt similar strategies.

TD Cowen maintained its $550 price target for MSTR and projects the company could hold 757,000 BTC by the end of fiscal year 2027 — about 3.6% of bitcoin’s total supply. The analysts said that if bitcoin hits an average price of $170,000 by then, TD Cowen estimates that stash could be worth $129 billion.

The bullish impact of this rivalry is already prominent in the market. The shares of Cantor Equity Partners (CEP), Twenty One’s SPAC vehicle, have already climbed as much as 130% since the announcement, while MSTR stocks held strong.

Read more: Cantor Skyrockets 130% as Traders FOMO Into the Stock on Bitcoin SPAC Frenzy

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) said it will introduce free conversions between PayPal’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, PYUSD, and the U.S. currency in a move aimed at accelerating the shift toward on-chain payments.

The move, open to both retail and institutional customers, is part of a partnership aimed at promoting PYUSD as a payment currency. Coinbase also plans to use its platform to offer PYUSD to PayPal’s extensive network of merchant partners, which could ease the use of stablecoins in everyday transactions.

Stablecoin rivalry heats up

Stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to traditional currencies, predominantly the dollar — are one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto. They are marketed as a faster and cheaper alternative to legacy payment systems, and are increasingly popular for payments across borders. Standard Chartered projected the sector to grow to $2 trillion by 2028 from the current $220 billion.

With regulation for stablecoins advancing in the U.S., the competition is heating up among issuers while banks and traditional payment firms are also eyeing the market. Binance, the largest crypto exchange, and Circle, issuer of the second largest dollar-backed stablecoin, have already linked up to use Circle’s USDC as a trading pair and payment method. Circle introduced a remittances network this week.

Market leader Tether, issuer of the $140 billion USDT, is mulling issuing a stablecoin designed for U.S. users.

Meanwhile, PayPal, whose stablecoin debuted in 2023 and has grown to $860 million, recently introduced a 3.7% annual yield on PYUSD for U.S. token holders to attract more users.

Shaquille O’Neal has reached a settlement agreement with a group of FTX investors who accused him of enabling the failed crypto exchange’s fraud by acting as a celebrity promoter, according to a court filing.

Details of the settlement agreement, including the amount O’Neal will pay, have not yet been disclosed. Plaintiffs in the case are seeking up to $21 billion in total damages from O’Neal and other promoters, former executives and other insiders.

The former basketball star-turned-business mogul was just one of a host of celebrity promoters named in the class action suit. Other athletes, including tennis player Naomi Osaka, baseball player Shohei Otani, basketball player Steph Curry and retired football player Tom Brady were also named as defendants, along with comedian Larry David, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, and model Gisele Bundchen.

Though O’Neal is the first big-name defendant in the case to settle on Wednesday, seven other celebrity promoters and former executives reached a settlement agreement with the investors back in 2023, including Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and Youtubers Tom Nash, Graham Stephan and Andrei Jikh. The first tranche of settlements were relatively small, totalling a collective $1.4 million.

O’Neal’s settlement with FTX investors is not his first tied to a promotion of a failed crypto project. Last year, O’Neal and several of his associates agreed to pay $11 million to Astral non-fungible token (NFT) holders who lost money in the Solana-based project he founded and promoted.

In today’s crypto for advisors, Dovile Silenskyte from WisdomTree talks about the growth of crypto products and how they’ve evolved into a strategic investment allocation.

Then, Kim Klemballa from CoinDesk Indices answers questions about digital asset benchmarks and trends in Ask an Expert.

– Sarah Morton

You’re reading Crypto for Advisors, CoinDesk’s weekly newsletter that unpacks digital assets for financial advisors. Subscribe here to get it every Thursday.

The Evolution of Crypto Products — From Speculative Bets to Strategic Assets

Crypto is no longer the “Wild West” of investing. Once dismissed as mere speculative bets, digital assets have matured into a credible and increasingly strategic component of institutional portfolios.

Figure 1: Global assets under management (AUM) in physical crypto ETPs

Source: Bloomberg, WisdomTree. 01 April 2025. Historical performance is not an indication of future performance and any investment may go down in value.

As of the end of Q1 2025, global assets under management (AUM) in physical bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) was more than $100 billion. That figure signals deep, sustained conviction from institutional investors, meaning this is no longer just the realm of early adopters. Today, sovereign wealth funds, pension schemes and asset managers are allocating to crypto at scale.

After more than 15 years of development, multiple boom-and-bust cycles and a global user base exceeding half a billion people, crypto has proven it is no passing trend. Bitcoin has emerged as a crypto macro asset — scarce, decentralized and increasingly positioned as a core holding within diversified multi-asset portfolios.

But here’s the catch — crypto allocations are still under-diversified.

Despite growing adoption, most crypto portfolios remain narrowly concentrated in bitcoin. That is a legacy mindset and one that is fundamentally flawed. Investors wouldn’t allocate their entire equity exposure to Apple, nor rely on a single bond to represent fixed income. Yet that is precisely how many still treat crypto.

Diversification is foundational in traditional finance. It spreads risk, enhances resilience and unlocks access to broader opportunity sets. The same principle holds in digital assets.

The cryptocurrency universe has expanded far beyond bitcoin, evolving into a dynamic ecosystem of distinct technologies, use cases and investment theses.

Smart contract platforms like Ethereum, Solana and Cardano are building decentralized infrastructure for everything from decentralized finance (DeFi) to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), each with unique trade-offs in scalability, security and network design. Meanwhile, Polkadot is advancing interoperability, enabling seamless communication across chains — a key building block for a multi-chain future.

Beyond these Layer 1 blockchains, we are seeing rapid innovation in:

• Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization where traditional finance meets blockchain rails
• DeFi protocols powering decentralized lending, trading and liquidity solutions
• Web3 infrastructure, from decentralized identity to storage, forming the backbone of a more open internet

Each of these sectors carries its own risk-return profile, adoption curve and regulatory trajectory. Treating them as interchangeable, or worse, ignoring them altogether, is similar to reducing global equity investing to a single tech stock. It is not just outdated — it is strategically inefficient.

Diversification in crypto is not about avoiding risk, but rather, capturing the full spectrum of innovation. In a multi-chain, multi-thesis world, failing to diversify means leaving opportunity on the table.

The case for crypto indices

The reality is that most investors do not have the time, tools or technical expertise to keep up with 24/7 crypto markets. Crypto indices offer a powerful solution for those seeking broad, systematic exposure without having to dive into tokenomics, validator uptime or network upgrades.

Just as equity investors rely on benchmarks such as the S&P 500 or MSCI indices, diversified crypto indices allow investors to access the market passively — with scale, structure and simplicity. No guesswork, no token-picking, no need for constant rebalances. Just clean, rules-based exposure to the evolving crypto landscape.

– Dovile Silenskyte, Director of Digital Assets Research, WisdomTree

Ask an Expert

Q. Why is diversification important in crypto?

A. Among over 20,000 listed cryptocurrencies, bitcoin now accounts for approximately 65% of total market capitalization. Diversification is key for institutional investors to manage volatility and capture broader opportunities. Indices can be an efficient way of tracking asset class performance, while products like exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and separately managed accounts (SMAs) can provide exposure to multiple cryptocurrencies at once, potentially helping to spread risk. 

Q. What trends are you seeing in digital assets?

A. Institutional investors are entering the market, pushing digital assets from a niche investment into a key asset class. EY-Parthenon and Coinbase conducted a survey of more than 350 institutional investors around the world in January 2025. Of the investors surveyed, 87% plan to increase overall allocations to crypto in 2025, spanning a variety of options such as exchange-traded products (ETPs), investments in digital asset companies, stablecoins, futures and thematic mutual funds. Per the survey, 55% hold spot crypto through ETPs, with 69% of those who plan to own spot crypto planning to do so using registered vehicles.

Q. Does a broad-based benchmark exist in crypto?

A. There are broad benchmarks in digital assets. At CoinDesk Indices, we launched the CoinDesk 20 Index in January 2024, to capture the performance of top digital assets and act as a gateway to measure, trade and invest in the ever-expanding crypto asset class. Designed with liquidity and diversification in mind, the CoinDesk 20 has generated an unprecedented $14.5 billion in total trading volume and is available in twenty investment vehicles globally. CoinDesk Indices also has the CoinDesk 80 Index, CoinDesk 100 Index (CoinDesk 20 + CoinDesk 80) and CoinDesk Memecoin Index, amongst others.

– Kim Klemballa, Head of Marketing, CoinDesk Indices

Keep Reading

• Why a Diversified Approach to Crypto Investing Makes Sense, an interview with Dovile Silenskyte.
• International grocery giant SPAR begins accepting bitcoin payments in Switzerland.
• The new crypto-friendly U.S. SEC Chair, Paul S. Atkins, was sworn in Wednesday.

TON Foundation, the entity behind the Telegram-linked TON blockchain, has appointed Maximilian Crown, co-founder of MoonPay, as its CEO.

Crown was the CFO and COO at the crypto infrastructure provider and has relationships with banks, payments companies, and regulatory bodies. He will remain on the board at MoonPay.

The move comes one month after the TON Foundation announced that it had received $400 million worth of investment from venture capitalist firms that purchased the TON token.

Active users on the TON blockchain jumped from 4 million to 41 million in the past year. However, the TON token, is down by 46% in the same period.

It aims to onboard 30% of Telegram’s active users to the blockchain by 2028.

“TON’s speed, scalability, and exclusive integration with Telegram set it apart in the blockchain space,” said Maximilian Crown. “With access to over 1 billion Telegram users, TON has a unique opportunity to expand its ecosystem globally and redefine how blockchain technology is adopted at scale.”

With Canada’s federal election less than one week away, Canadians are closely watching how political leaders intend to address digital assets. Millions of Canadians hold, use, or work in crypto, making it a growing focal point for economic growth and innovation. This politically prominent and growing community is shaping conversations about the future of finance, with voters signaling cautious openness, not to ban or ignore crypto, but to responsibly integrate it into Canada’s financial system with clear protections, accountability, and forward-looking policy.

Dean Skurka is a speaker at Consensus 2025, in Toronto May 15, appearing with Kevin O’Leary on Mainstage.

Canada’s leadership in digital assets isn’t theoretical. It has evolved through first-of-its-kind milestones, homegrown innovation, and meaningful regulatory advancements, including:

• Canada installed the world’s first Bitcoin ATM in Toronto in 2013;
• Ethereum, co-founded by Canadian Vitalik Buterin, began in Canada in 2015;
• Vancouver’s Dapper Labs introduced groundbreaking NFT platforms like NBA Top Shot, which launched in 2020;
• The Ontario Securities Commission and Canadian Securities Administration introduced a novel regulatory framework for crypto trading platforms in 2021; and
• Regulatory initiatives such as Alberta’s fintech sandbox and blockchain innovation hubs actively support industry growth, which launched around 2022.

Voter Momentum and Public Sentiment

The pro-crypto voter base is large, diverse, informed, and engaged. According to a survey bu Nanos Research for the Canadian Web3 Council:

• Younger Canadians and those with direct investment experience tend to view crypto favourably, indicating a generational and experiential shift in sentiment.
• 60% of Canadians surveyed support the federal government working with industry experts to develop cryptocurrency regulations and protect public interest. Only about one in five surveyed were opposed.
• 48% of Canadians say the government should implement a strategy for a “more accessible, inclusive, and effective financial ecosystem” that includes digital assets.

This engaged voter base, the majority being under 50, represents a significant political force. The election and subsequent administration offer policymakers a chance to support voters’ eagerness for clarity around Canada’s digital future.

In 2022, the (pro-crypto) Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre made headlines for advocating financial freedom through Bitcoin and decentralized finance, calling for less control from politicians and bankers and more power in the hands of individuals. He said he wanted to make Canada “the blockchain capital of the world,” allowing people to “opt out” of inflation by using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Read more: Nik De – Previewing the Canadian Election’s Crypto Angle

By contrast, former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, representing the Liberal Party, while supportive of digital innovation, remains skeptical of the idea that cryptocurrencies like stablecoins will fundamentally reshape the monetary system. He has argued that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) would be a safer, more stable foundation for digital money.

“Stablecoins are ultimately only an appendage to the conventional monetary system and not a game changer. CBDCs would reduce the risks of digital money and form the foundation of a more stable, programmable financial future,” he wrote in 2021.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has openly criticized crypto’s volatility, citing the financial losses suffered by Canadians who bought into digital assets as a hedge against inflation.

“We have a leader of the opposition who thinks he can magically opt out of inflation by buying cryptocurrency, which ended up tanking and hurting people,” he said in 2022.

The successful candidate from this upcoming election has a chance to translate these varied views into coherent platform frameworks and enhance Canada’s position as a forward-thinking and tech-driven economy.

Global Signals: Local Opportunity

The European Union has implemented the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, offering clear crypto regulations.

The U.S. is playing catchup following the election of Donald Trump last November. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee has advanced the “Stable Act of 2025,” a significant step toward establishing a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. And bipartisan efforts like the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act propose to exempt small crypto transactions under $200 from capital gains taxes. Congressional leaders are now working on a comprehensive “market structure” bill for crypto and regulators are open-minded about working with companies to adapt existing laws to modern needs.

Canada is well-positioned to do the same. With the right policies, we can continue to attract leading talent, keep homegrown companies here, and strengthen our global voice in Web3.

The choice is ours.

Why Policy Clarity Matters

Clarity on digital asset policy will affect how Canadians save, invest, and transact; whether new jobs and industries are built here or abroad; and whether our country will lead or follow in a rapidly emerging digital sector.

Digital assets offer tangible benefits like faster, cheaper remittances for newcomers supporting families overseas, more accessible financial tools for underserved communities, and diversified investment alternatives in times of economic uncertainty. Beyond personal finance, blockchain technology has real potential to modernize Canada’s financial infrastructure, enhance anti-fraud efforts, and improve transparency in sectors like supply chain management and government services.

The Canadian Web3 Council has called for integrating blockchain into Canada’s broader innovation strategy, urging federal support for talent development, funding, and the creation of a national blockchain strategy. They advocate for clear frameworks around decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoin regulation, and for Canada to take a leadership role in global digital asset policy conversations.

The Role of Industry & Community

The responsibility of highlighting crypto’s importance largely falls on the industry itself. Initiatives like Stand with Crypto Canada (a national advocacy campaign supported by WonderFi and nine other major companies) are actively educating voters and policymakers about the economic benefits of clear crypto regulation.

Similarly, Blockchain North’s Voices for Canadian Crypto campaign, featuring prominent thought leaders, is helping unify industry voices, emphasizing the need for proactive policy conversations with leaders.

We have talent. We have the infrastructure. And we have momentum.

Now, we need leaders who see crypto not as a passing trend, but as a powerful opportunity to fuel Canada’s economy and empower a new generation of builders, investors, and innovators.

The digital economy is here. The only question is: will Canada lead?

CME Group is rolling out XRP futures on May 19th as it continues to expand its suite of cryptocurrency products, the world’s largest derivatives exchange, said in a press release.

Pending regulatory approval, traders will be able to trade two contract sizes: 2,500 XRP and 50,000 XRP. The contracts will be cash-settled and based on the CME CF XRP-Dollar Reference Rate, which tracks XRP’s price daily at 4:00 p.m. London time.

“As innovation in the digital asset landscape continues to evolve, market participants continue to look to regulated derivatives products to manage risks across a wider range of tokens,” Giovanni Vicioso, global head of cryptocurrency products at CME Group, said.

“Interest in XRP and its underlying ledger (XRPL) has steadily increased as institutional and retail adoption for the network grows, and we are pleased to launch these new futures contracts to provide a capital-efficient toolset to support clients’ investment and hedging strategies.”

The move comes after CME launched Solana (SOL) futures in March in addition to bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) futures and options which have been trading on the exchange for a while.

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2687.87, down 1.3% (-36.46) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Two of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: POL (+9.1%) and SUI (+1.9%).

Laggards: UNI (-3.8%) and BCH (-3.0%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

Crypto trading infrastructure startup, Theo, has raised a $20 million round co-led by Hack VC and Anthos Capital. Other participants included crypto-native firms and individual investors affiliated with traditional trading companies such as Citadel, Jane Street, and JPMorgan.

Theo is developing a system that allows retail users to deposit digital assets into strategy-specific vaults, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk. These vaults are designed to provide access to advanced trading strategies—including arbitrage, hedging, and cross-chain funding rate optimization—that are typically used by institutional players.

The platform operates on a custom validator network that facilitates trade execution across both centralized and decentralized exchanges. It also enforces margin requirements and system-wide overcollateralization.

The startup was founded by ex-Optiver and IMC quant traders Abhi Pingle, Arijit Pingle, and TK Kwon. “Today’s crypto markets are fragmented and inefficient, preventing institutions and everyday users alike from accessing the full promise of global, permissionless finance,” Abhi Pingle said.

The press release notes that trading firms can use Theo’s infrastructure to improve capital efficiency by interacting with user-deposited funds, potentially increasing returns while managing execution and risk.

Americans reported a record $9.3 billion in losses to cryptocurrency-related crimes in 2024, according to a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The losses represent a 66% jump from 2023 and highlight the growing use of digital assets in online fraud schemes.

The annual IC3 report says nearly 150,000 complaints linked to crypto, with investment fraud leading the way. In these schemes, scammers often pretend to offer high returns on fake cryptocurrency platforms, coaxing victims to transfer funds that are then siphoned away.

The FBI also spotlighted “pig butchering” scams, where fraudsters build online relationships before pushing fake crypto investments. Crypto investment schemes led to $5.8 billion in losses, while the second-largest category by losses at $1.1 billion were data breaches.

Elderly Americans bore the brunt of the damage. Individuals over 60 reported $2.8 billion in losses through crypto-related crimes—more than any other age group— up from $1.65 billion in 2023 and $1.08 billion in 2022.

The second-most affected age group, those aged 40-49, suffered $1.4 billion in losses, while those under the age of 40 suffered combined losses of around $1.37 billion.

Over 8,000 of the complaints stemmed from people over 60 and related to fake investment opportunities, while others fell victim to tech support fraud and impersonation schemes, often involving cryptocurrency ATMs.

Operation Level Up, a government initiative launched in January 2024, identified thousands of victims of crypto investment fraud and prevented an estimated $285 million in further losses, per the report. It referred 42 victims for suicide intervention.