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Thanks for reading The Briefing, our nightly column where we break down the day’s news. If you like what you see, I encourage you to subscribe to our reporting here.
Greetings! After a rocky few months for bitcoin investors following Donald Trump’s inauguration, crypto insiders are on a high once again. Consider the case of David Bailey, the Bitcoin Magazine CEO who advised Donald Trump on crypto policy and helped fundraise for his 2024 campaign. Yesterday, Bailey announced that he has raised $710 million to launch Nakamoto, a publicly traded bitcoin investment firm similar to Michael Saylor’s Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy. The amount is more than double what the company had targeted just a week ago, as I first reported, and seven times higher than the $100 million goal he set out to raise a few months ago. “The Trump experience taught me you have to dream big,” Bailey told me over a call today. “There’s a lot of value in the world to be captured if you can just think big enough.” There are likely to be more good crypto vibes this week in Toronto, where executives and investors will be heading for Consensus, the annual confab hosted by CoinDesk. Eric Trump, who spearheads the Trump family’s crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial and American Bitcoin, will be there. Attendees will also hear from Bo Hines, the deputy of White House crypto and artificial intelligence czar David Sacks, on stablecoin legislation, which is currently stalled in the Senate. As bitcoin nears its record high, what’s different in this cycle is that crypto is more embedded with traditional finance than ever. Bailey’s deal comes amid investor euphoria for stocks that offer crypto exposure, which are more liquid and easier to hold than tokens purchased directly. Coinbase is set to become the first crypto company to join the S&P 500 index, which will introduce the stock to the portfolio of retirement funds and everyday investors, even those who have dismissed crypto as a speculative bubble. And Strategy itself is doubling its bitcoin purchase plans by aiming to raise $84 billion. “There are different pools of capital in the American capital markets that would be intrigued by bitcoin exposure. Right now we are tapping the surface,” said Josh Solesbury, investor and vice president at ParaFi Capital, an asset management firm focusing on digital assets. He expects that investors will eventually buy investment-grade debt, high-yield bonds, convertible bonds and preferred equity to fund companies’ purchases of bitcoin. That also means should a market downturn hit, more investors will be at risk. But while the music lasts, crypto is partying on. There was something for everyone in the Saudi Arabian goody bag on the first day of President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh. The big winners in tech were companies that reached agreements with Humain, the newly created Saudi AI company. Amazon and Humain announced plans to build a $5 billion–plus AI Zone in Saudi Arabia, while AMD and Humain will spend up to $10 billion for AI computing capacity in the country. Nvidia, too, will be sending chips to Saudi Arabia for data centers. Elon Musk came away a winner as well, announcing that Saudi Arabia had approved his Starlink satellite internet service for aviation and maritime use. True, the announcements were commitments, not contracts, but they added up to a whopping $600 billion. If only a portion of them turn into real deals, that’s still a lot of money.—Ken Brown
- Apple has partnered with brain computer interface startup Synchron to allow people with Synchron implants to control iPhones, iPads and Vision Pro headsets with their thoughts.
- Microsoft said it will lay off about 3% of its employees, or roughly 6,000 staffers, to reduce the number of managers at the company.
- ESPN will price its new sports streaming service at $30 a month and bundle it with Disney+ and Hulu for the same price for the first month and $36 after that.
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