Weekly Recap: Saylor Starts Selling as Wall Street Races Onchain

Michael Saylor spent the week doing the one thing he swore he never would. Strategy authorized its first real bitcoin sales to fund its preferred dividend, breaking the never-sell doctrine, and a Nasdaq-listed AVAX treasury vehicle warned it may not survive the year. The leverage trade that defined the last cycle is unwinding.

At the same time, Wall Street raced onchain. Robinhood opened its own layer-2 with tokenized stocks; Securitize, the engine behind BlackRock's BUIDL, went public and tokenized its own shares, and a 140-company consortium launched Open USD to take on Circle.

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WATCH

Is ENS DAO Dead? Nick Johnson Faces His Critics

The week's governance flashpoint, live. ENS co-founder Nick Johnson used his voting power to move the DAO's treasury under a foundation; delegate Alex Netto, who calls the plan "the downfall of ENS," debates him live, with delegate James Waugh joining after. Camila Russo hosts.

Top Stories This Week

Saylor Ends Strategy's Never-Sell Era With $1.25B in Bitcoin Sales

Strategy's board authorized selling up to $1.25 billion of bitcoin to fund its STRC preferred dividend and buybacks, formally ending the never-sell doctrine Michael Saylor built the treasury around. The move followed the enterprise mNAV falling below 1; by Thursday, CEO Phong Le was personally buying the battered STRC preferred.

Robinhood Takes Its Brokerage Onchain With Robinhood Chain

Robinhood opened its Arbitrum-based Robinhood Chain to the public at a London keynote, rolling out tokenized stocks, a Morpho-powered lending product, and agentic crypto trading, plus expansions in Canada, Singapore, and the UK. The retail brokerage is converting its user base into an onchain distribution channel — and dYdX is already building a DEX on top.

A 140-Company Consortium Takes On Circle With Open USD

A consortium of more than 140 financial and technology firms — including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase — launched Open USD, a stablecoin whose reserve yield and governance go to the businesses that adopt it. The pitch landed straight at Circle's model: Circle's stock fell more than 17% on the news, and CEO Jeremy Allaire spent the week defending USDC's network effects.

Securitize Tokenizes Its Own Stock on Its First Day Public

Securitize tokenized its own common stock the same day SECZ began trading on the NYSE, issuing shares on Avalanche and Solana. The tokenization platform behind BlackRock's BUIDL fund went public via a Cantor SPAC this week and became the first newly public company to mirror its own equity onchain.

Other Stories

Avalanche Treasury Corp Warns It May Not Survive the Year — the Nasdaq-listed AVAX treasury vehicle told the SEC its ability to continue as a going concern is in doubt after its stock crashed 93% in a month, the clearest sign yet that the digital-asset-treasury trade cuts both ways.

BNY Adds USDC to Its Institutional Custody Platform — the world's largest custodian, with $59.4 trillion under custody, made USDC the first stablecoin on its Digital Asset Custody platform, putting a systemically important bank directly in the stablecoin settlement path.

Strategy CEO Phong Le Buys 11,000 STRC Shares — Le bought the battered STRC preferred through a revocable trust at a weighted-average $90.80, an insider vote of confidence days after the board authorized selling bitcoin to fund its dividend.

BlackRock Adds Ethena's USDe to Its $20T Aladdin Platform — the asset manager listed the synthetic dollar on the risk system most institutions run on and made its BUIDL fund the primary backing for Ethena's whitelabel stablecoins.

Trending on The Defiant

• Solana Launches Onchain Governance With Stake-Weighted Voting for Validators
• Cloudflare Launches Monetization Gateway for Stablecoin Payments via x402
• dYdX Launches Arcus, a DEX Pairing Stock Tokens With Perpetuals on Robinhood Chain
• Ansem Airdrops $7M of $ANSEM Memecoin in Bid to Reach 1M Holders
• ShapeShift's Voorhees Defends Venice Token Terms After Critics Call Deal Underpriced

That's it for today — have a great weekend! If you enjoyed this newsletter, tell your friends!