Daily Edition · Page 6

THE DAILY INDEX

Technology, AI, software, security, crypto and business

MARKETS & BUSINESS

TLDR Crypto

STRATEGY'S PREFERRED SHARES FORM A BULLISH CIRCLE AROUND BITCOIN

Strategy raised $5.6 billion year-to-date through four preferred stock offerings (STRK, STRF, STRD, and STRC), representing 12% of all U.S. IPO issuance in 2025 and cementing its position as the largest corporate Bitcoin holder with 632,457 BTC. Performance across the preferred shares has diverged significantly, with STRF leading at 31% returns, STRK at 19%, STRC at 8%, while STRD posted a negative 6% return. Despite the company's aggressive Bitcoin accumulation strategy, MSTR shares have underperformed Bitcoin itself, gaining 13% year-to-date compared to Bitcoin's 18% rise, as the stock trades at a 1.60x multiple to its Bitcoin net asset value.

ETHEREUM FOUNDATION AIMS TO MAKE LAYER 2S FEEL LIKE ONE CHAIN

The Ethereum Foundation has unveiled a roadmap to address Layer 2 fragmentation through three workstreams: Initialisation, Acceleration, and Finalisation, aimed at making cross-L2 activity feel seamless. The initiative introduces an Open Intents Framework and Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) to enable trustless cross-chain transactions, while targeting faster L1 confirmations of 15-30 seconds and exploring potential slot time reductions from 12 to 6 seconds. Key deliverables include production contracts for the intents framework by Q4 2025, broad availability of fast confirmation rules by Q1 2026, and ongoing research into zero-knowledge proof integration for real-time settlement.

AI REVENUE ENGINES: THE GATEWAY TO BROADER ADOPTION

Decentralized AI (DeAI) protocols are beginning to generate revenue through compute, data, and agent services. Multiple DeAI projects across categories, including fine-tuned models, DePIN infrastructure, portfolio management, and agent launchpads, are demonstrating product-market fit with users willing to pay for services, mirroring how centralized AI companies reach $30 million in revenue 5x faster than traditional SaaS. Despite AI being the most disruptive technology of the current era, AI tokens represent only 1.9% of the total altcoin market cap, suggesting significant undervaluation relative to their revenue-generating potential.

THE 2025 CRYPTO CARD COMPARISON

The crypto card market is evolving beyond simple prepaid wrappers toward solutions that leverage crypto's core advantages, with new offerings in 2025 focusing on four key differentiators: custody, yield generation, multi-chain flexibility, and privacy. EtherFi Cash leads the DeFi-native approach by allowing users to spend directly from yield-generating vaults – earning 9-12% on USDC while maintaining 3%+ cashback – while PAYY prioritizes privacy through zero-knowledge settlement, and Cypher enables spending across 500+ tokens on 18+ chains. Traditional players like Coinbase are also entering with mainstream credit card offerings featuring crypto rewards.

TLDR IndexPage 6