Jack Mallers’ bitcoin (BTC) payments app Strike is set to move into the BTC lending business.

Strike plans to offer users a means of borrowing fiat while continuing to HODL bitcoin, Mallers wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

«You shouldn’t have to sell the best-performing asset in human history to access cash. Now you don’t have to,» he wrote.

Strike Lending will initially be available in select regions of the U.S. with plans for international expansion.

«If bitcoin continues to grow faster than your borrowing costs, your asset appreciates faster than your debt. In other words, the gains from holding bitcoin can more than offset the interest on your loan,» Mallers said.

A number of bitcoin lenders were casualties of the crypto winter that kicked off in 2022. BlockFi, Celsius and Genesis all capitulated during that period.

The entry into this sector of cryptocurrency A-listers like Coinbase suggest bitcoin lending is prime for a resurgence after the rally that followed the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in November.

Read More: Coinbase Targeting 4%-8% Returns With New Bitcoin Yield Fund

One of the Uniswap DAO’s top contributors walked away in frustration on Monday amid concerns that other stakeholders wield too much power over the decentralised protocol.

Pepo, a pseudonymous delegate whom other token holders entrusted to vote on their behalf, had participated in Uniswap’s governance since 2023. He wielded 455,000 UNI tokens, making him one of the top 20 largest delegates.

The reason for the departure? Other organisations involved in the running of Uniswap — primarily the nonprofit Uniswap Foundation — have pushed aside the opinions of DAO members and have been unreceptive to feedback, Pepo said in an X post.

“The Foundation’s behavior seems to have prioritized insulation over collaboration, and in doing so, may have actively harmed Uniswap,” Pepo said.

Devin Walsh, Executive Director of the Uniswap Foundation, didn’t provide direct comment to CoinDesk when asked about the accusation. However, she did provide a rebuttal on social media.

“Delegate participation is essential to the success of the Uniswap ecosystem,” she said on X. “The Uniswap Foundation takes their feedback seriously.”

Uniswap is the biggest decentralized exchange with some $4 billion worth of deposits, down 60% from its peak of nearly $10 billion total-value-locked during 2021-2022, according to DefiLlama data.

Like many DeFi protocols, Uniswap is controlled and managed through a somewhat byzantine structure.

The protocol was created by Uniswap Labs, a for-profit company which is also responsible for its continued development. The Uniswap Foundation, a nonprofit, is tasked with supporting Uniswap and its community, while protocol changes and allocation of resources is controlled by the Uniswap DAO, a type of crypto collective governed by holders of the UNI token.

In March, the DAO granted the foundation $165 million to boost Uniswap ecosystem growth and development. This gave the foundation a mandate to do certain things in pursuit of its goals without directly consulting the DAO.

Some, like Pepo, feel the Uniswap Foundation’s actions are putting the DAO’s interests behind those of itself and Uniswap Labs.

This situation highlights the persistent struggle to balance the interests of DeFi protocol token holders with those of other stakeholders.

Not the first time

Pepo isn’t the only one to highlight a perceived lack of DAO control at Uniswap.

In October, Billy Gao, vice president of Stanford Blockchain Club, a Uniswap delegate, said Uniswap Labs’ sudden decision to launch its own blockchain “raised serious questions about DAO governance.”

Gao argued that the Uniswap DAO should have been told about the blockchain ahead of time and allowed to weigh in on key decisions in its implementation. “It calls to question (once again) how decentralized [Uniswap’s] governance actually is,” he said.

Uniswap Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Others have questioned how the Uniswap Foundation uses the funds granted to it, and have complained that it isn’t transparent enough about its spending and decision making.

“Transparency and communication are values that many delegates agree with,” Doo Wan Nam, Co-founder of DAO governance solutions provider StableLab, a Uniswap delegate, told CoinDesk. “There have been improvements.”

On May 1, the Uniswap Foundation responded to criticism by creating a Foundation Feedback Group, intended to ensure effective communication and strengthen accountability between the foundation and the DAO.

Additionally, as a nonprofit company, the foundation must legally publish its finances.

But the problem is that for some delegates, it’s not enough.

“It’s a loss for any DAO whenever a delegate feels the only way to make an impact is through stepping down,” PaperImperium, Governance Liaison at Uniswap DAO delegate GFX Labs, told CoinDesk.

Behind the scenes

Some governance participants also complained that a lot of Uniswap DAO communication and decision-making happens privately, instead of publicly on the Uniswap governance forums.

This has led to complaints that major decisions are all agreed on by large delegates behind closed doors before going to a public vote.

It’s necessary for proposals to receive a degree of feedback before being presented publicly, Nam said.

It’s not unlike traditional governance. “Congressmen won’t just blindly write bills without talking to relevant stakeholders or other Congressmen,” Nam said.

But it’s a double-edged sword. As DAOs mature, there’s also a sense that they are becoming more about politics and appearances rather than pursuing what’s best for the protocol.

Multiple Uniswap delegates declined to comment to CoinDesk when asked about the complaints highlighted by Pepo.

Read more: Uniswap Passes $165M Funding Plan After DAO Vote

In financial markets, making assumptions based on short-term observations is a fool’s errand, as significant trends develop over months and years, not days or weeks. But as investors evaluate bitcoin’s role in their portfolios, the events of April are worth analyzing in order to understand the asset’s emerging reputation as a store of value.

Backdrop of volatility

The turbulence sparked by President Trump’s tariffs announcement on April 2 sent stock prices plummeting the following day, with the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 falling 4.8% and 5.4%, respectively. Bitcoin followed suit as the VIX Volatility Index hit levels not seen since the early days of COVID and fears of retaliatory trade measures prevailed.

However, bitcoin’s price began to recover sharply within days of the announcement, causing its correlation with both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 to fall below 0.50, before those correlations rose again as the April 9 pause on tariffs brought back “risk-on” mode.

Bitcoin’s correlations to traditional markets in April

Source: Hashdex Research with data from CF Benchmarks and Bloomberg (April 01, 2025 to April 30, 2025). 30-day rolling correlations (considering only workdays) between bitcoin (represented by the Nasdaq Bitcoin Reference Price Index) and TradFi indices.

This short-term observation matters because it supports the changing nature of how investors perceive bitcoin. While some still categorize bitcoin as a high-beta “risk-on” asset, institutional sentiment is beginning to reflect a more nuanced understanding. Bitcoin recovered faster than the S&P 500 in the 60 days that followed the COVID outbreak, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. banking crisis in 2023, events in which it demonstrated resilience and a profile increasingly aligned with that of gold during stress.

These periods of decoupling establish a pattern where bitcoin displays its antifragile properties, allowing allocators to protect capital during systemic events, while still outpacing the performance of stocks, bonds and gold over the long haul.

Bitcoin vs. traditional assets, 5-year returns

Source: CaseBitcoin, Return data from May 1, 2020 to April 30, 2025 (CaseBitcoin.com)

The path to digital gold

Maybe more compelling than bitcoin’s longer-term returns are the long-term portfolio effects. Even a small allocation to bitcoin within a traditional 60% stock/40% bond portfolio would have improved risk-adjusted returns in 98% of rolling three-year periods over the last decade. And these risk-adjusted returns are markedly higher over longer time frames, suggesting that bitcoin’s volatility from positive returns more than counterbalances short-term drawdowns.

It might still be premature to claim that bitcoin has been universally accepted as “digital gold,” but that narrative, supported by its response to geopolitical events, is gaining momentum. The combination of bitcoin’s fixed supply, liquidity, accessibility and immunity to central bank interference gives it properties no traditional asset can replicate. This should be appealing to any investor, large or small, in search of portfolio diversification and long-term wealth preservation.