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⌐◪-◪ → MicroStrategy just announced Orange Protocol, an open-source decentralized identity standard built on Bitcoin.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Michael Saylor previously hinted that MicroStrategy was working in the identity and authentication space.

According to the draft Orange Protocol specifications on Github, they are using a modified approach to Ordinals inscriptions, only storing data related to decentralized identity.

This move marks a major milestone in MicroStrategy’s transition from simply investing in Bitcoin to becoming a Bitcoin development company.

→ The Ordinals community is going wild on the news
→ BTC-maxis are triggered over institutional-grade spam

⌐◪-◪ → BlackRock’s 77-day streak of consecutive inflows has sadly come to an end after $36.9M net outflows on May 1st.

This is the first time BlackRock’s $IBIT saw any outflows since its inception earlier this year.

Zooming out, the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs saw total outflows of $563M, a new daily record. This is most likely due to investors losing conviction amid Bitcoins pull-back under $60k.

But hey, enough of this bearish talk! Two important developments:

1. BNP Paribas, the 2nd largest bank in Europe, just bought some shares in BlackRock’s $IBIT ETF

2. BlackRock expects sovereign wealth & pension funds to start buying spot Bitcoin ETF shares

While BlackRock won’t be breaking JPMorgan’s 160-day consecutive inflows record, this sell-off is a healthy purge that creates room for large institutional buyers to enter.

Gradually, then suddenly.

⌐◪-◪ → Tether, the operator of the largest stablecoin by market cap, just reported a record profit of $4.52B for Q1 2024.

• $3.52B of the profits came from BTC and Gold market gains

• $1B came from net operating profits, primarily driven by interest on their $90B US Treasury portfolio.

If you want to dig deeper, check out the full Q1 2024 report.

Despite criticism over the sustainability of its profits, given its reliance on interest rates and the BTC/Gold market, Tether’s success underscores its dominant position in the stablecoin market and the general product/market fit of stablecoins.

I reckon we see a handful of new entrants in the stablecoin market as this headline makes its way onto the desks of crypto/fintech execs.

In fact, It’s already happening — see our April 4th issue, where we discussed Ripple’s plans to launch a USD stablecoin.

I can’t blame them, it’s a pretty amazing business model:

→ Pay 0% on billions of deposits
→ Earn 5%+ on US Treasuries

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