Strategy's Funding Engine Is Showing Real Cracks

Plus: ⚖️ Senators push CFTC to investigate Polymarket | 📈 Securitize heads to the NYSE

June 29, 2026

Hi! In today’s edition:

  • 🔧 The mechanism that let Strategy buy billions in bitcoin every week has broken down 

  • ⚖️ Bipartisan senators just asked the CFTC tough questions about Polymarket

  • 📈 The company that tokenized BlackRock's billion-dollar fund is about to go public — and it's raising more than expected

Strategy's Bitcoin Funding Machine Seizes Up

Strategy (MSTR) closed last week to around $82, down nearly 47% year-to-date, pushing the company's so-called enterprise mNAV below 1 for the first time. 

Strategy's Bitcoin funding model depends on the metric. Strategy sells common stock above the value of its bitcoin, deploys the proceeds to buy more bitcoin, and lifts bitcoin-per-share in the process. With the premium gone, both taps are running dry at the same time: MSTR issuance is now dilutive rather than accretive, and STRC, the preferred stock designed to trade near $100, has sunk to a record low near $74, about 26% below par. 

Annual dividend obligations on all preferred instruments have nearly sextupled from $300 million at the start of the year to $1.7 billion, while the company's dollar reserve has shrunk from two years of dividend coverage to roughly a year.

Senators Demand CFTC Probe Polymarket's Fake Bets

Senators John Curtis (R-UT) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) sent a letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig on Thursday calling for an investigation into Polymarket following a Wall Street Journal report that the platform paid social media creators to film fake winning bets on replica websites. The Journal reviewed more than 1,100 promotional videos and found 70% showed fabricated trades totaling roughly $1.9 million, with most creators not disclosing the paid relationship.

The senators asked Selig for written answers by July 10 on whether the CFTC is investigating Polymarket, whether the advertising practices were legal, and whether the agency has adequate resources to police prediction markets. The Wall Street Journal separately reported Friday that the CFTC is conducting an ongoing, extensive investigation into Polymarket. A consumer advocacy group, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, also filed a lawsuit against Polymarket in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Friday.

Securitize Heads to NYSE With $400 Million

Securitize, the tokenization firm behind BlackRock's BUIDL fund and the NYSE's 24/7 tokenized stock platform, is on track to raise approximately $400 million when it closes its SPAC combination with Cantor Equity Partners II on July 1 as it plans to begin trading on the NYSE under the ticker SECZ on July 2. The company said holders of less than 30% of CEPT Class A ordinary shares elected to redeem, locking in strong gross proceeds that include related PIPE financings.

Securitize entered the deal via a definitive agreement announced in October 2025. It currently manages more than $4 billion in AUM through tokenized funds in partnership with Apollo, BlackRock, BNY, Hamilton Lane, KKR, and VanEck. 

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said reaching the public markets marks a "significant milestone" for tokenization as it moves from experiments into mainstream financial infrastructure.

DON'T MISS TODAY'S UNCHAINED ON AIR SHOWS

First, five former Ethereum Foundation researchers just launched Ethlabs, an independent nonprofit R&D lab backed by Bitmine, Sharplink, and Joe Lubin, and bankrolled partly by some of the network's largest ETH holders.

Executive director Ansgar Dietrichs joins Laura to explain why Ethereum is betting on a fragmented, multi-org model, how the lab guards against capture by its own backers, and whether it complements the EF or competes with it for talent. Streams at 3:30pm ET.

Then, Bitcoin just logged its worst month of ETF outflows on record, and the tape won't budge. Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins debate what actually breaks the stall: Strategy's unwind (mNAV now below 1, STRC trading ~29% under par), the White House's push to pass the Clarity Act, or a codified Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Live at 4:30pm ET.

Join us on X, YouTube or PumpFun.

  • 🟡 The BIS warned in its 2026 annual report that stablecoins fail to meet the foundational properties of money, including singleness, elasticity, interoperability, and integrity, and that widespread adoption could strain bank funding, constrain credit, and trigger what it called "stablecoin dollarization" in emerging-market economies where dollar-pegged tokens could erode monetary sovereignty. The report pitched a "unified ledger" anchored in central bank money as the safer alternative, and estimated that the stablecoin market stood at roughly $320 billion as of end-May 2026, with 99.4% of that value dollar-pegged.

  • ⚖️ Spain's CNMV ruled out any extensions or exceptions to the July 1 MiCA licensing deadline, with chair Carlos San Basilio saying at an event in Santander that unlicensed firms must wind down EU operations and submit orderly exit plans, while the regulator monitors how they transfer customer assets, according to Reuters. Binance has reportedly told EU users in France, Italy, Spain, and Poland it would be suspending services as the MiCA deadline looms.

  • 🎯 DraftKings launched DKeX, a proprietary prediction market exchange integrated directly into its unified sports app, as its DraftKings Predictions unit hit approximately $3.4 billion in annualized consumer volume and $11.3 billion in annualized total trading volume for the week ended June 21. DKeX is built on the technology and CFTC license acquired through its purchase of Railbird Technologies, giving DraftKings vertical control over the infrastructure powering its prediction markets alongside its sportsbook.

  • 🎯 Kalshi announced a co-branding partnership with ADI Predictstreet, the Official Prediction Market Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026, for in-stadium, TV, and online placements during the knockout stage, as the platform recorded a record daily volume of $1 billion-plus in the tournament's second week. Bank of America estimates Kalshi currently controls approximately 90% of regulated U.S. prediction market share.

  • 🔒 Base experienced a second mainnet stall in two days on Friday, pausing block production, according to the network's status page. The incident followed two-hour outage on Thursday.

  • 🔒 SecondFi (formerly Yoroi) outlined a two-week recovery plan after the Cardano wallet platform suffered a $2.4 million exploit through a flaw in its wallet generation software, with EMURGO confirming it has secured the remaining funds at risk and begun verifying affected wallets to prepare reimbursements. 

  • ⚖️ BitMEX removed its top three executives, with CEO Stephan Lutz, CFO Ina Steiner, and head of growth Raphael Polansky all departing and global general counsel Peter Wilkinson taking over as chief executive, according to CoinDesk. BitMEX, which pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations in 2024, has been reported to be seeking a buyer since early 2025.

  • 💰 Kiwoom Securities is in talks to acquire a stake in South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb through a third-party share issuance, according to local reporting, as South Korea's traditional finance industry races to establish digital asset positions ahead of incoming regulations on security token offerings and stablecoins. 

  • 💸 Framework Ventures raised $400 million for its fourth fund, expanding its mandate beyond crypto to cover AI, robotics, and energy under what co-founders Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson are calling "frontier technology." The fund, which is already roughly half deployed, joins a growing group of crypto-native VCs, including Paradigm and Haun Ventures, that are broadening into AI as the current bear cycle pressures returns.