Morning Minute: A Change of Strategy

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors mostly flat, HYPE leading; BTC falls 1.3% to $58.9k
• Strategy stock jumps 13% after Saylor rolls out Digital Credit Capital Framework
• Supreme Court rules that Trump can fire SEC and CFTC heads at will
• JPMorgan backs the Clarity Act in pivot, odds rebound to 49%
• ANSEM soars 100% to $160M, ignites the SOL meme market

₿ Strategy Overhauls Its Model and Gives Itself Permission to Sell Bitcoin

Strategy just formally ended the “never sell” era.

Facing a stock that had fallen below the value of its own Bitcoin, Michael Saylor’s company unveiled a sweeping new capital framework that lets it sell Bitcoin, buy back its battered shares, and shore up its preferred stock.

📌 What Happened?

Strategy adopted a “Digital Credit Capital Framework” that overhauls the financing model behind its Bitcoin bet. The headline change is a $1.25 billion Bitcoin monetization program, giving the company formal permission to sell BTC to build cash, fund dividends, and cover interest. It also authorized $2 billion in buybacks, split evenly between common stock and preferred shares, to deploy during market dislocations without touching its cash reserve.

Strategy also:

• raised the dividend on its STRC preferred stock to 12% effective in July
• set a policy to hold at least 12 months of dividend and interest coverage in cash (now $2.55 billion or about 17 months) and
• said it will stop issuing common equity to buy Bitcoin when its shares trade near the value of its holdings.

MSTR jumped about 13% on the news, its biggest day in four months. STRC rose 12%, and Bitcoin reclaimed $60,000 briefly before giving back gains overnight.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

CEO Phong Le framed it as a move from primarily issuing capital to “actively managing the capital structure through both issuance and repurchases,” depending on conditions.

Saylor said the framework is meant to strengthen Strategy’s credit profile while keeping Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset.

Critics had been pushing for exactly this, as Grayscale’s research head argued days earlier that Strategy should sell at least $3 billion of Bitcoin to cover near-term obligations.

🧠 Why It Matters

This new framework is a genuine pivot. Selling Bitcoin to fund dividends, repurchasing discounted shares, and pausing issuance when the premium is gone is active management. And it’s a sharp turn from being a permanent accumulator.

The market cheered because 1) he raised another $1.2B in cash, now up to $2.55B and 2) it puts shareholders and the credit stack ahead of relentless BTC buying. But the tradeoff is real: the biggest corporate buyer of Bitcoin is now also a potential seller, removing a pillar of demand at a fragile moment.

So where does this leave us? The odds of Saylor blowing up anytime soon effectively went to zero. He’s up to 17 months of dividend payments, and given the near-term pop in MSTR price, Saylor will likely sell more MSTR this week. So expect an even bigger cash cushion into July. That should be good for Bitcoin (or at least, not bad) and removes an overhang.

Longer term, this is harder to project. Saylor still needs the price of BTC to go up over time for his model to work. If BTC goes into a multi-year bear, he could still be in trouble. But if the 4-year cycle plays out again like it has the past several cycles, he likely weathered the storm.

We will know a lot more over the next 6-12 months…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are mixed with HYPE leading; BTC -1.3% at $58.9k; ETH even at $1,570; SOL +1% at $73; HYPE +4% at $65.20
•  KAS (+11%), ADI (+9%) and SKY (+7%) led top movers
• Oil even at $70; Gold even at $4,040
• Stock futures are slightly green ahead of the quarter close; DOW +0.1%, Nasdaq +0.2%
• The Supreme Court ruled that Trump can fire SEC and CFTC commissioners at will, overturning a 91-year precedent and handing the president direct control over the two agencies that regulate crypto at a crucial moment for legislation
• The White House is talking to law enforcement about concerns with the CLARITY Act, according to a report, as worries persist that the bill’s developer protections could be exploited for illicit finance
• JPMorgan backed the Clarity Act in a major pivot, but warned that new rules should close regulatory gaps
• Galaxy Digital lowered its odds of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 to 50%, citing the narrowing legislative window and mounting opposition to the crypto market-structure bill.
• BNY added USDC to its custody platform, expanding the bank’s digital-asset services to meet growing institutional demand for stablecoin custody
• A JPMorgan report highlighted low institutional interest in crypto perpetual futures, finding big players have largely stayed on the sidelines of the product at the center of the CME-CFTC fight
• Vitalik Buterin highlighted the importance of obfuscation in crypto, pointing to it as a foundational tool that could unlock powerful new privacy and functionality for onchain applications

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $231M in net outflows on Monday; the ETH ETFs saw $30M in outflows
• Tom Lee’s BitMine boosted its Ethereum holdings with a $43 million buy, continuing to accumulate ETH even as Strategy paused its Bitcoin purchases.

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly red; DOGE -2%, SHIB even%, PEPE -1%, PENGU -2%, TRUMP -1%, BONK -1%
• TJR (+38x), ANSEM (+40%) and LUKE (+27x) led movers on Solana
• Base movers included FAI (+23%) and REI (+13%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Ripple began testing a native lending protocol on the XRP Ledger, bringing onchain lending directly to the XRPL as it builds out the network’s DeFi capabilities
• Ethena’s ENA popped after BlackRock’s Aladdin platform integrated its USDe token, putting the synthetic dollar inside the risk system used across much of traditional asset management

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were slightly red; Punks -3% at 31.5 ETH, BAYC -1% at 8.825 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 4.45 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% at 225 HYPE
• Normies (+13%) and R3order (+20%) led top movers