19th May 2025 > > MSTR & staking.

tl;dr

Will MSTR join COIN in the S&P 500? Let’s hope so for all our bags. Staking regulations are soon to be finalised.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

IBTC posted its highest ever weekly close last night at $106,500, if stats like that are of interest to you. It isn’t clear to me why we have retraced that strong rally since the close, but new ATHs still look very doable very soon.

Curious Cryptos’ meme corner – We have all been there

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Strategy (MSTR)

Following Coinbase’s inclusion in the S&P 500, cementing crypto exposure into every pool of investment money worldwide, will MSTR be the next to join?

This is what you get for your money:

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Staking and securities laws

Nearly $200bn of crypto assets are being staked across the whole gamut of Proof-of-Stake networks, either directly or via Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs), the latter being the more sophisticated choice. The spot ETH ETFs are denied this opportunity under the current SEC rules inherited from Gensler, effectively imposing a 3%-5% annual charge making the ETFs unattractive. Gensler’s view that securities laws derived from a court case in the 1930s, known as the Howey Test, has any relevance to today’s world is frankly ridiculous, and perhaps is soon to be jettisoned.

As the regulatory and legal reset in favour of cryptos gets underway, the SEC has recently met with Everstake to discuss the future treatment of staking and its rewards. Specifically, the conversation focused on whether the staking process should be viewed as a securities transaction or not.

Sergii Vasylchuk, founder of Everstake, is clear in his own mind on this point:

“Our main assertion is that staking is not a financial instrument or security transaction, but rather a technical process, a base-layer protocol mechanism—akin to an oracle in a database—that maintains the integrity and functionality of decentralized networks.”

Everstake’s chief legal officer Margaret Rosenfeld, chimes in:

“Treating it as a securities offering undermines the decentralized model and risks chilling innovation in the blockchain sector.”

The SEC has yet to formulate its response, but I suspect we do not have long to wait before we get clarity on this point which will probably result in staking being allowed by the spot ETFs, both the current crop of ETH ETFs, and the expected launches of XRP, and others, later this year.