MSTR earnings came out May 1. My morning media stops last Thursday (here and here) asked for a preview. We don’t talk about stocks, so I planned to zoom out and hit themes. While preparing, I had to suppress the eye-roll reflexes that MSTR triggers.

MSTR, of course, is the ticker symbol for MicroStrategy, or Strategy, as the company is now known. Strategy, fronted by Michael Saylor, pioneered the “bitcoin treasury” model that’s now been copied by Metaplanet and dozens of other companies. Strategy plans to raise $84 billion, according to its most recent announcement, across equity and fixed income instruments.

Here are three questions:

1. Earnings?
MSTR «earnings» and «price targets» are… Well, they don’t really mean the same thing, especially once the effect of ASC 2023-08 is backed out. It’s just the price of bitcoin and financing, plain and simple. Wall Street analysts and pundits should get that right.

2. Strategy?
You can’t just say, «Strategy.» You have to say, «Strategy; you know, it used to be Microstrategy.» Like Prince, Puff Daddy, Kanye West and Twitter. NB: folks say «strategy» (small «s») a lot already.

3. Don’t be a hater?
MSTR supports a market cap of $107b with bitcoin holdings of $53b and laser-eyed goodwill. No lifeboat, no parachute, no apparent Plan B. If it fails, the bitcoin market could take the blame.

Those eye-rollers (and some obsequious media coverage) notwithstanding, we can agree that:

— The capital raises are truly awesome. The force is strong in this one.

— MSTR is up 36% on the year, compared to less than 5% for bitcoin. Who am I to throw stones?

— MSTR cleverly uses stock price volatility as a feature, not a bug, for 1) issuing mouth-watering converts, 2) attracting listed options volume, and 3) corporate «yield» strategies. (Just please stop calling option-selling a «yield strategy.» And I said «strategy» again. Small «s».)

— The preferreds (STRK and STRF) hit the mark with some folks who like preferreds. Some of my preferreds friends are smitten.

MSTR created a movement

Strategy (big «S») has not only created a movement, but a category. Levered MSTR ETFs (including this new one which pays «income») serve the market for whom MSTR’s 70 vol is dull. Grayscale announced an ETF that tracks 30 companies that hold at least 100 bitcoin.

Last, but not least, Cantor Equity Partners, a SPAC, is merging to form Twenty One Capital, which will hold $3 billion of bitcoin. Mention this trend in a room full of pundits and they’ll yell «Gamestop!» in unison. It’s fun.

This is all fine. Adding bitcoin to the treasury of non-crypto companies* is an interesting trend. (And that doesn’t include crypto-native companies, like CoinDesk’s parent company, Bullish.)

But it’s only bitcoin at the moment.

US (bitcoin) exceptionalism

Despite the loosening of U.S. regulatory zip-ties on digital assets and the recent flurry of ETF filings, bitcoin still dominates the conversation (it still accounts for about two-thirds of the total cryptocurrency market).

Again, that’s fine if we are talking about a store-of-value asset contributing to a corporate treasury otherwise allocated to cash and treasuries. However, the growing number of flavors of bitcoin exposure—leverage, yield, optionality, protection—are taking the place of education about what other blockchain assets hope to deliver, and why it is important to spend more time thinking about the asset class.

Until recently, that was fruitless for many investors and advisors, since brokerage- or futures- account implementation was not available. (Of course, it has been for ETH, but you need more than ETH to think about the «digital asset class.» Lack of enthusiasm for ETH investment vehicles, we believe, has struggled in part for this reason.)

If 2024 was bitcoin’s «coming out» year, we hope that 2025 gives investors and traders opportunities to think deeper and more broadly, and to implement accordingly. If not, the U.S. crypto investing narrative will start to sound like a «bitcoin maxi,» and that feels like leaving money on the table.

Crypto’s big show in the U.S. Congress has been unveiled in the form of a discussion draft of legislation that would establish for the first time a comprehensive domestic regime for regulating digital assets.

The House Financial Services Committee and House Agriculture Committee — both sharing responsibility for the jurisdiction-hoping assets — released a working draft of a bill that Representative French Hill, chairman of the financial-services panel, said can deliver «much-needed regulatory clarity.»

«Today marks the first step in advancing a comprehensive framework that protects consumers, fosters innovation, and closes regulatory gaps in oversight,» said Representative Glenn «GT» Thompson, chairman on the agricultural committee, which has oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that will likely have a major role in crypto oversight. «It will give digital asset developers and users the certainty they need and have asked for.

On Tuesday, the digital assets subcommittees of both House committees are set to hold a joint hearing on the future of digital assets, where the discussion draft will be under the spotlight.

The draft details the public disclosures that crypto projects would be required to make. It also provides for digital assets developers to raise capital under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s watch, or to register with the CFTC to handle the trading of digital commodities.

The bill is meant to finally establish «clear lines» between the jurisdictions of the two U.S. markets regulators, a question that’s been a thorn in the side of U.S. crypto businesses.

This proposed format for the long-awaited crypto legislation, built on a similar first effort called the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) that advanced through the House last year, emerges as the industry’s allies in Congress have been working urgently on a separate legislative effort to regulate stablecoins. The stablecoin and market-structure bills represent the primary lobbying effort for crypto in the U.S., though advocates are fighting the headwinds of President Donald Trump’s own crypto business interests that have drawn Democratic criticism.

Stablecoin bills have already advanced through House and Senate committees and are awaiting consideration by the overall chambers.

Read More: U.S. Senate Moves Toward Action on Stablecoin Bill

Corporate treasury buying of bitcoin (BTC) could reach $330 billion by the end of 2029, broker Bernstein said in a research report Monday.

Strategy (MSTR) is likely to be the largest buyer, with an additional $124 billion of the world’s largest crypto, in the broker’s bull case. The company led by Michael Saylor announced a further $21 billion at-the-market common stock offering last week to buy more bitcoin.

«The U.S. pro crypto regulatory regime have further accelerated the corporate ownership growth of bitcoin,» analysts led by Gautam Chhugani wrote.

Bernstein expects other listed companies to allocate around $205 billion to bitcoin acquisition strategies, led by smaller firms with lower growth looking to emulate Strategy’s treasury model.

Public companies now own ~2.4% of the bitcoin supply, or about 720,000 BTC on their balance sheets, the report noted.

Still, Strategy’s «scale is hard to replicate» and not every bitcoin treasury will be successful in attempting to replicate the company’s playbook, the report added.

Strategy acquired an additional 1,895 bitcoin last week for $180.3 million.

Read more: Michael Saylor’s Strategy Adds 1,895 Bitcoin, Bringing Company Stack to 555,450 BTC