tl;dr
MSTR is destined for inclusion in the S&P 500 forcing passive funds to buy in size. Australians are about to fund their retirement with BTC.
Market Snap
Market Wrap
After a long weekend due to the ironically named Labor Day holiday and consequently thin markets, price action was less volatile than it might have been.
A continuation of this short-term and localised sell-off is to be expected this week, and probably next week too.
Occasional Series – Megalomaniac Xi
At the anti-democracy summit held in Beijing at the command of dictator Xi, flanked by his murderous henchmen, he made this startling claim:
“All countries, regardless of size, strength or wealth, should equally participate in, decide on and benefit from global governance”.
Yeah, right. I believe you.
Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Strategy (MSTR)
MSTR’s quarterly results reported a month ago were mightily impressive:
“Earnings Highlights
- $14.0 billion of Operating Income in Q2
- $10.0 billion of Net Income in Q2
- $32.60 of Diluted Earnings per Share in Q2
Bitcoin Highlights
- 628,791 bitcoin holdings at a total cost of $46.07 billion, or $73,277 per bitcoin YTD
- 25.0% BTC Yield achieved in 2025 YTD
- $13.2 billion BTC $ Gain achieved in 2025 YTD
FY2025 Earnings Guidance
- Operating Income of $34 billion
- Net Income of $24 billion
- Diluted Earnings per Share of $80 per share”
Source: https://www.strategy.com/press/strategy-announces-second-quarter-2025-financial-results_07-31-2025
So impressive that it seems most likely that this Friday will see the inclusion of MSTR into the S&P 500 effective from September 19th. The S&P 500 is the most widely tracked stock index by ETFs. The three largest ETFs account for $1.3 TRILLION of investors’ funds passively tracking the S&P500, whilst the total of all funds tracking the S&P 500 is closer to $2 TRILLION.
Those funds cannot front-run the decision to include MSTR in the S&P 500, but they will become forced buyers afterwards and in size, which I believe to be a handy bit of information.
Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Australian pensions
The combined value of Australia’s retirement funds is approximately AUD 4.3 TRILLION, nearly $3 TRILLION. The regulatory system has long allowed for investments in cryptos to be held within a retirement fund wrapper, though there has been little traction with very few banks offering this functionality. That is a decision that TradFi institutions will likely come to regret.
Coinbase and OKX are launching products aimed at the self-managed superannuation funds (SMSF) which account for about 25% or $750bn of pension assets. Currently, there is only about $1bn of those funds directly invested in cryptos, mostly BTC. My long-held view that 3% to 5% of all investment money will flow into cryptos (an estimate that increasingly looks to be on the conservative side) suggests that we will see new demand totalling up to $40bn from SMSFs alone. Once the managed funds are forced to follow suit, as they surely will, then over $150bn of new money will be invested mostly in BTC, over the next two years or so.
Global adoption of cryptos continues to pick up pace.