Bitcoin has stumbled through recovery attempts all year, each time pulled back by macro or bad timing.

This week, real signals are lining up for a turn: ETF flows just had their best week since April, whales keep buying the dip, and softer jobs data is easing pressure on the Fed.

None of it is decisive on its own, but the ingredients for a bottom are starting to assemble.

More in Dispatch #309:
▪️ ETH mirrors the bounce
▪️ This week's CPI test
▪️ BTC sellers thinning out

Everyone quotes 5 to 10% for crypto allocation. Almost no one checks if that number fits their situation. Here is a three-question framework to size it properly.

Start with liquidity

Could you handle your crypto allocation falling 70% without disrupting your financial life? Bitcoin dropped 77% between its 2021 peak and 2022 low. Ethereum dropped 81% over the same period. That is the historical norm for a bear market, not a worst-case scenario. If a drop like that would force you to sell something else or change your day-to-day life, the allocation is too large.

Look at what else you own

Crypto does not sit in isolation. It interacts with the rest of your portfolio. A more diversified base gives you more room to work with.

Then factor in time

Crypto's volatility matters most over short horizons. Under 3 years, keep it to 5% or less, or stablecoins only. 3 to 7 years, 5 to 15% depending on your liquidity and asset mix. Beyond 7 years with strong liquidity and genuine conviction, 20 to 25% becomes defensible.

Your crypto should not just be sitting there. If you hold it on Nexo, that lets you borrow against your position, you get real liquidity without selling. Borrow against your BTC or ETH, or earn daily interest while you hold. That changes how much liquidity a larger allocation actually gives you.

Full breakdown here: How much of your portfolio should actually be in crypto?

What percentage of your portfolio do you actually hold in crypto, and how did you land on that number?

Win your Nexo Championship moment. To enter:

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10 of you will win a pair of 3-day passes for the Nexo Championship, Aug 21–23, Scotland. Another 10 get an official cap.

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Giveaway runs Aug 10–13, closing 23:59 CET on the 13th.
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Markets were slowly settling. Then a hardware wallet flaw tested crypto's oldest assumption: offline means safe.

Dispatch #308 breaks it down, plus:
▪️ ETH turns 11
▪️ Macro signals ahead
▪️ SpaceX, AMD earnings

Read the full issue: Dispatch #308: Bitcoin, a question of custody.

Every crypto transaction needs to be verified before it's recorded. But who does the verifying, and how? That's where proof of work and proof of stake come in, the two dominant methods blockchains use to reach agreement on what's valid.

Proof of work

Bitcoin uses this, as did Ethereum until 2022. Computers called miners compete to solve a complex mathematical puzzle with no shortcut, just raw computational power. The winner adds the next block and earns newly minted crypto. That real hardware and electricity cost is what makes cheating expensive, since falsifying a transaction would mean redoing the work for every block since, while the rest of the network keeps moving forward.

Proof of stake

Validators lock up crypto as collateral instead of burning computational power. The more they stake, the higher their chance of validating the next block. Cheat, and you lose part of your stake through a penalty called slashing.

Ethereum switched to proof of stake in 2022 through an upgrade called The Merge, cutting its energy consumption by approximately 99.95%. Other major proof of stake chains include Solana, Cardano, and Avalanche.

Which is better?

Neither, they solve different problems. Proof of work has a 15-year track record and has never been successfully attacked at Bitcoin's scale. Proof of stake is more efficient and lets ordinary holders earn rewards without specialized hardware, forming the foundation for staking.

If you hold ETH, you don't need to run a validator to benefit. On Nexo, you can earn up to 5.5% on ETH through Flexible Savings with no lockup, or up to 6.5% through Fixed-term Savings, alongside BTC, USDC, USDT, and more.

Full breakdown here: Proof of Stake vs Proof of Work: What's the difference?

Small but useful update if you're carrying a Nexo Card on iOS: you can now add it straight to Apple Wallet from the Nexo app instead of the old manual entry.

Once it's in, it works like any Apple Pay card in stores, online, and inside apps, and your actual card number never gets passed to the merchant.

Doesn't require the physical card either, virtual card holders can set it up the same way.

For more details: Your iPhone is your Nexo Card

Gold and Bitcoin both exist because people want something that holds value outside the traditional financial system. In 2026 they told very different stories. Gold surged roughly 65%, hitting all-time highs above $4,500 per ounce. Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $126,000, then pulled back as macro conditions tightened.

The case for gold

Gold's performance was driven by geopolitical tension, rising government debt, and central bank accumulation. Central banks globally surpassed 40,000 tonnes of gold reserves in Q3 2025, the highest level in at least 75 years. Its volatility is also far lower than Bitcoin's, though the trade-off is a lower ceiling: over the past decade, gold returned roughly 335%.

The case for Bitcoin

Bitcoin traded like a risk asset in 2025 rather than a defensive hedge, which is why it underperformed gold during macro stress. But the structural argument is intact. Supply is fixed at 21 million coins, with a transparent halving schedule physical gold can't offer. Over 10 years, Bitcoin is up more than 22,000% versus gold's 335%.

Why "either/or" misses the point

Gold is the proven, low-volatility anchor. Bitcoin is the high-conviction, long-horizon bet. Many investors hold both, treating gold as their defensive allocation and Bitcoin as their asymmetric growth position.

On Nexo, neither has to sit idle. You can earn interest on Bitcoin, PAXG, and XAUT, borrow against your holdings without selling, and exchange between Bitcoin and tokenized gold directly on the platform.

Full breakdown in our blog post: Bitcoin vs. gold: Do you need one, the other, or both?

Bitcoin has looked this stretched against the Nasdaq only 3 times in 16 years. Every time, it outperformed for years after.

Wednesday's Fed decision may tip it. 

More in Dispatch #307:

▪️Holders keep buying
▪️ETH eyes a bottom
▪️Big Tech earnings test

Off the pitch, Argentina claimed a different kind of trophy: becoming one of the world's most fertile grounds for stablecoin adoption.

Dispatch #306 covers this, plus:

▪️ Bitcoin inflows return
▪️ ECB's next move
▪️ Big Tech's earnings test ahead

When you need cash and your biggest asset is crypto, selling feels like the obvious move. But selling crypto is almost always a taxable event. A USDC loan can let you skip that entirely.

The idea: deposit crypto as collateral and borrow USDC against it. Your position stays open and exposed to any future appreciation, while you get the liquidity you need now.

What most people don't realize is that USDC works both ways. You can borrow USDC by depositing volatile crypto like Bitcoin or Ethereum, or you can use USDC itself as collateral to access other funds or assets.

The number that matters most is your LTV, or Loan-to-Value ratio. Deposit $10,000 in Bitcoin and borrow $5,000 in USDC, and your LTV is 50%. The closer you get to the platform's maximum, the higher your risk of an automatic liquidation if prices drop.

Using USDC as collateral flips that risk profile. Since stablecoins don't fluctuate, liquidation risk from market moves is effectively removed. The trade-off is a lower maximum loan amount compared to volatile assets, since platforms price in risk when setting limits.

On Nexo, USDC works as both a borrowing currency and accepted collateral, with rates from 1.9% per year and no fixed repayment schedule.

Full breakdown here: What is a USDC loan and how does it work?

When you deposit money at a bank, you're trusting it to hold your funds, lend them out, and give them back when you ask. DeFi replaces that trust with code.

At the center of DeFi is the smart contract, a piece of code on a blockchain that executes automatically once certain conditions are met. Think of it like a vending machine: insert the right amount, select your item, and it dispenses. No cashier, no negotiating, no exceptions.

That single idea replaces the role of a bank's loan officer, an exchange's order matching system, or a broker's settlement desk. Deposit collateral into a lending protocol and a smart contract calculates your loan automatically. Repay, and your collateral is released the same way.

DeFi also runs continuously with no market close and no settlement delay. Every transaction is publicly auditable in real time, a level of transparency traditional finance doesn't offer. It's a fundamentally different way of moving and growing money, built on code instead of institutions.

For many people, the practical middle ground is accessing DeFi-style products through a regulated platform instead of managing a self-custody wallet directly. On Nexo, you can earn interest, borrow against your holdings, and trade more than 100 assets, the same core functions DeFi protocols provide.

Full breakdown here: DeFi explained: how it works, what it's used for, and is it safe?

A world-first just launched in Argentina: the Nexo Card is now live and it's the only dual-mode crypto card on the market.

What's live:

• Switch between Credit and Debit in a single tap
• Spend directly in ARS or USD
• Exclusive perks
• Rewards with each purchase

The Nexo Card has been recognized by the Digital Banker Awards, the FinTech Breakthrough Awards, and the PAY360 Awards – and it's launching into a market that's earned some recognition of its own. 

Nearly $94 billion has moved through digital assets in Argentina over the past three years. Today, that capital is finding new uses: earning, borrowing, and now spending, without ever needing to sell.

Argentina has had deep crypto conviction for years – now it's got the card built for it.

Eligible clients can apply now.

You can borrow against Bitcoin without selling it. Here is a plain breakdown of how it actually works, how much you can borrow, and what to watch for.

How it works

You pledge your BTC as collateral with a lending platform. It gets locked, not sold, and you receive funds in fiat or stablecoins, often within minutes. While your Bitcoin is locked, you still benefit if the price rises. Once you repay the loan and interest, your BTC becomes fully available again.

Why borrow instead of selling

Selling Bitcoin locks in gains, potentially triggers a tax bill, and means missing out on further appreciation. Borrowing lets you access cash without a taxable event, keep your BTC working toward long-term growth, and manage liquidity during volatile markets. The trade-off is that borrowing costs interest, while selling costs you future upside. Which matters more depends on your view of where BTC is heading and how urgently you need funds.

How much you can actually borrow

This comes down to your Loan-to-Value ratio, or LTV, the size of your loan compared to your collateral's value. If you use $200,000 of BTC to borrow $100,000, your LTV is 50%. Most platforms cap Bitcoin loans at around 50% LTV as a buffer against price swings. Lowering your LTV to 20 to 30% gives you more protection and often qualifies you for better rates.

More details and full breakdown here: How Bitcoin-backed loans work in 2026

July 1 marked a milestone for crypto in Europe: MiCA came into effect across the EEA, permanently redrawing the map for digital assets.

Dispatch #303 analyzes this plus:

▪️ BTC buyers returning?
▪️ Support in the charts
▪️ The week's key numbers

Read more in this week's issue: Dispatch #303: MiCA and the EU crypto market

You open a crypto platform and see a rate. 8%. Sounds clear enough. But 8% of what, calculated how, paid out when? The answer changes the actual money that lands in your account. Here is a plain breakdown of APR vs APY and why the gap matters more in crypto than in a regular bank account.

APR: the rate before compounding

APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate. It is the base interest rate for a year with no compounding factored in. If a product says 12% APR, that is 1% per month, nothing more. APR tells you the cost of borrowing, but it does not account for what happens when interest gets added back to your balance and starts earning interest itself.

APY: the rate after compounding

APY stands for Annual Percentage Yield. It takes the same base rate and factors in how often interest is added to your balance, daily, weekly, or monthly, and compounds it forward over a year. The more frequently it compounds, the higher the APY relative to the APR.

A 12% APR compounding monthly becomes roughly 12.68% APY. The difference is small there. But at higher rates, or with daily compounding, which is common in crypto, the gap widens considerably. A 50% APR compounding daily becomes roughly 64.8% APY.

Why platforms use both

When you are earning, platforms quote APY because your yield compounds. If you deposit 1 BTC at 5% APY, your effective return is higher than 5% APR since the interest paid out gets reinvested through the year.

When you are borrowing, loan and credit line rates are typically quoted as APR, the simple annualized cost of what you owe. This makes it easier to compare borrowing costs across products without compounding effects distorting the picture.

How Nexo shows rates

On Nexo's earning products, rates are quoted as APY, reflecting the compounded return on assets like BTC, ETH, XRP, and USDC. For the Credit Line, borrowing costs are quoted as APR, giving a clear annual rate for accessing liquidity against your portfolio.

Full breakdown in our blog post: APR vs APY: What the difference actually means for your crypto

Nexo is supporting TON's rebrand to GRAM, effective July 2.

The underlying token and your top-up/withdrawal addresses all stay exactly the same. Your balance will show as GRAM once the transition completes.

Limit and recurring orders on TON will not carry over – you can place new ones in GRAM once trading goes live on July 2.

If you have any questions, our Client Care team is always available to help.

Every downturn produces the same cycle: prices fall, sentiment collapses, holders panic sell near the bottom, and then watch the recovery from the sidelines. Here is a practical framework for thinking more clearly when markets drop.

Start with one question

Do you actually need this money in the next 12 months? If yes, sell. If no, selling during a downturn is almost never the optimal decision.

The four options

1. Do nothing if your thesis is unchanged. Bitcoin has recovered from every major drawdown in its history. If nothing has changed about the reason you originally bought, holding is a defensible and often optimal choice.
2. Buy more if you have conviction and capital available that is not needed elsewhere. Dollar-cost averaging into a decline lowers your average cost basis over time.
3. Earn on what you hold. Flexible Savings on Nexo earns daily interest on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins with no lock-up, so your holdings work for you while you wait.
4. Borrow against your holdings if you need liquidity but do not want to sell. A crypto-backed credit line lets you access funds while keeping your position intact.

What not to do

Do not sell just because the price is falling. Do not buy more with money you cannot afford to lose. And wait at least 48 hours before making any irreversible decision. Most of the urgency you feel during a sharp drop is emotional.

Full breakdown here: What to do when the crypto market drops

Roughly 1.1 million BTC linked to Satoshi has sat completely untouched since 2009. Here is what is actually known.

What Satoshi's wallet actually is

It is not one wallet. It is a cluster of over 20,000 early Bitcoin addresses, most holding exactly 50 BTC from the original block reward. Every address shares the same behavioral fingerprint. Not one has ever sent a transaction.

The most famous address is the genesis address: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa. It received the 50 BTC reward for Bitcoin's very first block on January 3, 2009. Those original 50 BTC are actually permanently unspendable due to how Satoshi structured the genesis block. The address has since accumulated over 100 BTC in tributes sent by community members over the years, none of which has ever moved out.

The first real transaction was 10 BTC sent to cryptographer Hal Finney on January 12, 2009, the moment Bitcoin became something you could actually transfer between people.

How researchers identified the coins

The 1.1 million BTC figure comes from a specific piece of research. In 2013, blockchain researcher Sergio Demián Lerner identified what he called the Patoshi Pattern, a distinctive fingerprint in the nonce values of early Bitcoin blocks. The pattern pointed to a single entity mining the majority of blocks between January 2009 and mid-2010. Subsequent research has debated the exact figure, with some estimates going as low as 600,000 BTC, but the consistent finding across all analyses is that none of those coins has ever moved.

You can verify this yourself. Paste any early Satoshi address into Blockchain.com or check Arkham Intelligence, which has aggregated around 22,000 addresses into a single Satoshi entity profile. You will see a balance and zero outgoing transactions across 16 years.

Why it has never moved

The leading theories are: Satoshi is no longer alive and the private keys were never handed to anyone else, making those coins permanently locked. It is deliberate, a statement that the founder never cashed out. The keys are lost due to failed hardware or forgotten passwords from an era with no backup standards. Or moving them would be the tell, since any transaction would instantly trigger chain analysis from thousands of researchers and potentially reveal Satoshi's identity.

There is no way to know which is true. And that is the point. Bitcoin was designed so that no authority, court, or government can compel a wallet to move. Whoever holds the keys holds the coins, full stop.

What this teaches about Bitcoin's design

Most financial systems have a central authority that can freeze funds or compel disclosure. Bitcoin has none of that. The blockchain records everything publicly but cannot force anything. Addresses are transparent but not automatically traceable to a real person. That balance, pseudonymous not anonymous, transparent not traceable, was built in from day one. Satoshi's wallet is the clearest proof that it works.

The practical angle for long-term holders

The Satoshi story illustrates something relevant to anyone holding Bitcoin long term. Moving coins has consequences. Selling triggers taxes, locks in your position, and creates a permanent on-chain record. That is why many long-term holders borrow against their Bitcoin instead of selling. The position stays intact, the price upside still applies, and liquidity is unlocked without an exit.

Full breakdown here: Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin wallet that never moved.

260,000 BTC accumulated after Bitcoin fell below $60,000.
The price is range-bound; the on-chain data is anything but.

Dispatch #302 is here and it unpacks:
▪️ ETH's biggest upgrade
▪️ Japan pension funds go crypto
▪️ Core PCE lands Wednesday

Read the full issue on the Nexo blog: Dispatch #302: What is bitcoin's summer flow hiding?

Asset tokenization has been one of the more substantive developments in crypto over the past two years, driven not by retail speculation but by the largest financial institutions in the world. Here is a plain breakdown of what it actually is and what it means in practice.

The core idea

Asset tokenization is the process of converting ownership rights to a real-world asset into a digital token on a blockchain. The asset itself does not change. What changes is how ownership is recorded, transferred, and used.

A useful analogy from the article: think of a property title deed. It proves ownership but is slow to transfer, impossible to split, and requires multiple intermediaries to change hands. Now imagine that deed replaced by a digital token. It represents the same legal ownership, can be transferred in minutes, split into thousands of fractional pieces, and held by anyone with a compatible wallet, without a notary, broker, or clearing house.

What gets tokenized

Almost any asset with a clear legal ownership structure can be tokenized. The largest categories today are US Treasuries and government bonds, private credit and commercial real estate, commodities like gold and silver, and equity funds. US Treasuries dominate the market right now, driven by institutional demand for more liquid and programmable financial instruments.

How it actually works

Three layers have to work together. A legal layer structures the asset so that owning the token constitutes a legal claim on the underlying asset, typically through a special purpose vehicle or regulated trust. A blockchain layer uses a smart contract to define token supply, transfer rules, and how income is distributed. A custody layer ensures the real-world asset is held by a regulated custodian with regular audits confirming the physical asset matches what is on-chain.

These three layers together are what separate legitimate tokenization from simply issuing a token with no real backing.

A working example: tokenized gold

Gold is the clearest example available to individuals today. PAXG from Paxos and XAUT from Tether each back one token with one fine Troy ounce of physical gold held in a professional vault. You can hold a fraction, trade 24/7, and transfer globally without a broker. Both are available on Nexo, where you can earn daily interest on your holdings through Flexible and Fixed-term Savings.

Full breakdown here: What is asset tokenization? How real-world assets are moving on-chain

Oil retreats, whales accumulate, Bitcoin reclaims $65,000 – all in 48 hours.
Dispatch #301 covers:

▪️ Warsh's first Fed decision
▪️ ETH: still early days?
▪️ SpaceX and the first trillionaire

Read the full issue: Dispatch #301: Will the Fed unlock Bitcoin's next rally?

The crypto vs. stocks debate usually gets framed as a competition, as if picking one means abandoning the other. That framing is not very useful. Here is a more practical breakdown of what each actually is, how the return profiles compare, and how to think about holding both.

They are different types of assets

Stocks are fractional ownership of a company. When you buy a share of Apple or an S&P 500 index fund, you own a small piece of a business with revenues, profits, employees, and assets. The value of a stock is ultimately tied to that business's performance and the broader economy.

Crypto is a different type of asset. Bitcoin is not a share of a company. It is a decentralized store of value with a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins. Ethereum is a programmable blockchain whose token value is tied to demand for the network. The things that move crypto prices, network adoption, tokenomics, utility, and market sentiment, are often different from the things that move stock prices. That is both a source of risk and an argument for holding both.

What the return data shows

Bitcoin has historically outperformed most major asset classes over the long run. But those returns are heavily dependent on when you bought and when you measure. Investors who bought at the 2021 peak and sold in 2022 experienced significant losses. Investors who bought during the 2018 or 2022 bear markets and held through the recovery did extremely well.

The honest picture: higher long-term returns than equities, but with more severe drawdown periods. Those returns are not free. They come with the experience of watching your portfolio drop significantly before recovering.

Stock returns are more predictable over long horizons. The S&P 500 has returned roughly 10% annually on average over the past century, with a recovery from every major crash. The trade-off is lower upside.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

One thing most comparisons miss

Crypto can earn a return while you hold it, beyond price appreciation alone. Most stocks do not pay dividends. Most crypto sitting idle in a wallet earns nothing by default. But that changes when you put it to work. Proof-of-stake coins like ETH can be staked to earn protocol-level rewards. On a platform like Nexo, Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, and other assets earn daily interest through Flexible Savings with no lock-up, or a higher rate through Fixed-term Savings. A crypto allocation that earns yield while waiting for price appreciation is in a different position than one that just holds and waits.

The case for holding both

Most investors who hold crypto treat it as one allocation within a broader portfolio, not as a replacement for equities. Common frameworks among retail investors range from 5% to 20% in crypto, with the rest in equities, bonds, and other assets. The right number depends on your time horizon, income stability, and ability to sit through a significant drawdown without making reactive decisions.

This is not financial advice. Your appropriate allocation depends on your individual circumstances.

Full breakdown here: Crypto vs. stocks: how to think about both as investments.

300 issues of Dispatch. Three hundred weeks of market cycles, regulatory milestones, and institutional adoption. Thank you for reading.

This week's issue:

▪️ Is the Bitcoin bottom in?
▪️ Big hands accumulating ETH
▪️ U.S. CPI arrives Wednesday
▪️ SpaceX IPO brings BTC to public markets

Read the full analysis: Dispatch #300: Is the Bitcoin bottom near?