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Kaupr Daily — Thursday 13 August, 2026
Bitcoin has barely moved since February, and the question in listed companies has shifted from how much they hold to who manages it. Two Nordic firms have now put hedge fund veterans in charge of theirs — and bought the managers' own firms to get them.
💎 Peter Warren will trade options on H100's 3,506 bitcoin
💎 A Swedish company pays Europe's first dividend funded by a bitcoin holding
💎 Twenty One's chief executive names five things the company must become
💎 Strategy builds a $650 million cash buffer around its holding
💎 The US bank chartering agency says it is open for business
— Morten
Somebody has to manage the bitcoin
Two Nordic companies hire hedge fund veterans, and buy the firms to get them
Peter Warren becomes chief investment officer at H100 Group, trading options and other derivatives on the company's 3,506 bitcoin. Eighteen months earlier Sweden's Hilbert Group did the same, appointing hedge fund veteran Russell Thompson to run active, quantitative management. Both arrived because the listed company bought the manager's own firm, and with each came the strategies and the developer teams behind them.
Why it matters: The mandates are written in the language of a hedge fund rather than a bitcoin investor — risk management, cash flow, limited downside. What a company owns matters less than who runs it, and under what instruction.
Also read: Peter Warren to trade options on H100 bitcoin holdings · H100 names new CEO after Moonshot acquisition
A Swedish company pays Europe's first bitcoin-backed dividend
Bitcoin Treasury Capital pays one Swedish krona per preference share on 19 August, the first instalment of a fixed 10 percent annual yield, and the first European dividend funded from a bitcoin holding. The company is debt-free, unlike the model Strategy made famous, and isolating the capital raise in a separate share class keeps the bitcoin behind each ordinary share unchanged. The stock trades at a 20 percent discount to net asset value.
Why it matters: Exchange-traded products track the price but pay nothing; dividend stocks pay but hold no bitcoin. This sits between the two, which is a gap nobody in Europe had filled.
The treasury companies write new plans
Twenty One's chief executive sets out five things it must become
Raphael Zagury told shareholders on Tuesday that Twenty One owns one of the largest bitcoin balance sheets in the public markets, but has to become more than a treasury to be worth owning. His five priorities are operating businesses, acquisitions, capital markets, bitcoin-backed lending and governance. He took over in July from founder Jack Mallers, who left citing differences with the board.
Why it matters: Four of the five priorities are about earning money from something other than the holding. That is a different company from the one shareholders bought into.
Source: Twenty One Capital CEO Raphael Zagury unveils 5-step plan to expand beyond bitcoin treasury — Yahoo Finance
Strategy builds a cash buffer around its bitcoin
Filings this month show Strategy added $650 million to its dollar reserve through share sales, sold 1,690 bitcoin for $108.6 million, and used the proceeds to repurchase $109 million of preferred stock. It still holds 840,447 bitcoin. The company now has to answer to conventional investors watching the reserve and to bitcoin holders watching every coin that leaves.
Why it matters: A company built on never selling is now managing preferred dividends, buybacks and reserve duration. Whether that reads as maturity or as strain depends on why the next sale happens.
Source: Strategy boosts cash reserve as bitcoin treasury model gets more complex — NewsBTC
What AI might need from a blockchain
Grayscale names the three places the demand could land
Head of research Zach Pandl argues that artificial intelligence and public blockchains are complementary, and names three areas where AI adoption could create demand: agentic finance, verifiable records for computation and reputation, and decentralised alternatives to centralised AI. Ethereum and Solana are named as settlement infrastructure for agent payments.
Why it matters: For agents to act on someone's behalf they need to hold and spend money without a person approving each transaction. That is a plumbing problem, and it is the one crypto has spent a decade solving.
Source: Why AI needs blockchain technology — Grayscale Research
Bitcoin is not going anywhere, and that is the story
Volumes at multi-year lows, and two research houses call it attractive
Bitcoin trades around $64,000 and has stayed between $60,000 and $80,000 since February, with average volume in bitcoin perpetuals down to its lowest since 2023. K33 separates this from the bear markets of 2014, 2018 and 2022, reading it as indifference rather than deterioration. CoinShares expects the year to end above current levels.
Why it matters: Open interest is running above its two-year average while trading is this thin. High leverage in a quiet market means small moves can force liquidations that amplify them.
Source: Bitcoin is going nowhere – analysts see an attractive level — Kaupr
Washington's regulators are not waiting
The US bank chartering agency says it is open for business
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which grants national bank charters in the United States, said on Tuesday that firms in legally permissible activities including digital assets should have a path to becoming a national bank. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said the agency has taken 40 applications for new banks in 18 months, against fewer than four a year between 2011 and 2014. Thirteen digital asset applications are pending, and one was refused in July.
Why it matters: A national charter replaces fifty state licences with one federal supervisor and opens the door to the Federal Reserve's payment system. The Fed still decides who gets an account there.
Source: OCC says it's 'open for business' as crypto firms line up for bank charters — Bitcoin Magazine
Two things nobody had put onchain
Ship finance, a $2 trillion asset class with no public market
ADI Chain and Shipfinex plan to tokenise commercial vessels, opening a market that has been closed and relationship-driven. The world's commercial fleet is worth roughly $2 trillion, almost none of it accessible to outside investors. No tokens have been issued yet, and Shipfinex holds only provisional approval from its Dubai regulator.
Why it matters: Tokenisation usually arrives where a market already works. Shipping is the opposite case, which makes it a harder test of whether the technology adds anything.
Source: A $2 trillion asset class is getting a new blockchain rail — CoinDesk
Tokenised equities pass $2.6 billion, up eightfold in a year
The onchain market value of tokenised stocks has risen from $329 million a year ago to more than $2.6 billion, and from $1.7 billion at the end of June. Spot trading in June alone came to $3.8 billion. Two or three issuers control more than 80 percent of the market.
Why it matters: Growth this concentrated says the demand is real but the supply is not yet competitive. Who else issues, and on what terms, decides whether this becomes a market or stays a product.
Source: Tokenized stocks surpass $2.6B onchain market cap — Crypto Briefing
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Wishing you a good Thursday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Daily.
Best regards Morten Myrstad Founder & Editor