Blackstone buys Bitcoin — quietly.

PLUS: Texas plans BTC reserve, dollar hits 2-week low, SEC delays DOGE & XRP ETFs, IMF warns of growing US debt risk

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Cryptopolitan News
May 21, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

📬 Today’s Byte

• Blackstone just added Bitcoin to its $1T portfolio

• Texas is building its own Bitcoin vault

• Traders bet against the dollar as G7 looms

• Thread of the day

Blackstone just added Bitcoin to its $1T portfolio

In a new SEC filing dated May 20, Blackstone Inc. — which manages roughly $1 trillion in assets — disclosed it now holds 23,094 shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). It’s the first confirmed appearance of Bitcoin exposure in Blackstone’s portfolio, marking a new milestone for institutional adoption.

Blackstone’s exposure to Bitcoin comes through BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, which tracks spot BTC prices. As of Monday, IBIT was valued at $59.75 per share, giving Blackstone’s position an estimated value of $1.38 million.

The move lets Blackstone tap into Bitcoin’s upside — without dealing with self-custody, wallets, or cold storage risks.

Why it matters:

  • This isn’t just another investment. Blackstone entering crypto, even indirectly, sends a powerful signal: Bitcoin is becoming an accepted part of diversified institutional portfolios.

  • Blackstone joins a growing club of legacy giants like Millennium, JPMorgan, and Fidelity  that now hold Bitcoin via ETFs.

  • It reinforces the utility of ETFs as a “compliance-first” path into crypto for traditional funds.

Bitcoin ETF inflows have surged since the SEC greenlit multiple spot products in January 2024. Grayscale converted its trust into an ETF, and players like Ark 21Shares and ProShares jumped in too. BlackRock’s IBIT has since grown into a $66.6 billion fund, holding over 636,000 BTC which is nearly 3% of the total supply.

The takeaway: Blackstone didn’t buy Bitcoin on a whim. It put Bitcoin in its Alternative Multi-Strategy Fund, a product designed to manage market volatility. That says a lot about how institutions now view BTC, not just as a speculative gamble, but as a serious asset class with long-term strategic value.

Bitcoin is hovering just below $109,000, where a wall of short positions has formed. A breakout could liquidate bearish bets and set a new all-time high — but traders are split. Whales on Hyperliquid are still going long.

📜 Regulation Watch: 

Texas is getting serious about crypto. Lawmakers just passed the second reading of a bill that would let the state create its own Bitcoin Reserve — and the support was overwhelming: 105 votes in favor, just 23 against. One more vote and a signature from Governor Greg Abbott is all it needs to become law.

If approved, this would make Texas the third U.S. state to hold Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, following the footsteps of New Hampshire and Arizona.

So what’s actually in the bill?

Senate Bill 21 proposes a state-run Bitcoin Reserve, managed by the Texas Comptroller. The fund would use taxpayer money to buy Bitcoin — but only if it meets some strict criteria:

  • The crypto must have a market cap of $500 billion or more,

  • And it must hold that value for at least two years.

Right now, that pretty much means Bitcoin alone.

Why Texas wants a Bitcoin Reserve

The goal is to diversify the state’s financial holdings, hedge against inflation, and build a more resilient treasury. Supporters believe holding BTC can help Texas navigate economic instability and federal policy shifts.

And Texas isn’t alone. With President Trump endorsing the idea of state-held Bitcoin reserves, other states — like Utah, Oklahoma, and Kentucky — are drawing up similar plans.

It’s not just an American thing

Ukraine is drafting a Bitcoin Reserve bill with support from Binance. In Ireland, Conor McGregor is pitching a national crypto fund  and he’s even meeting El Salvador’s President Bukele to discuss Bitcoin accumulation.

The takeaway: Texas isn’t betting on hype. It’s betting on Bitcoin as a long-term strategic asset. If this passes, expect more U.S. states  and maybe even countries  to follow.

The SEC has delayed rulings on XRP and Dogecoin ETF proposals, opening them up for public comment. Bitwise’s Ethereum staking ETF is also on hold. Analysts expect most final decisions to land by October.

📊 Market Watch: 

The U.S. dollar just hit a two-week low, and traders are going full bear mode ahead of the G7 summit.

On Wednesday, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index slipped 0.4%  marking three straight days of losses as investors braced for signals from Trump’s economic team. That’s making global markets nervous.

  • Japan’s Finance Minister is planning to confront U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent directly at the G7 about currency concerns.

  • South Korea has already had similar talks with the U.S.

  • Meanwhile, Washington is debating a $4.5 trillion tax cut that would cost $3.8 trillion in lost revenue over the next decade.

Then came the hammer — Moody’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating, citing rising debt and surging interest costs. Traders responded instantly: the dollar dropped across all G10 currencies.

FX traders lose confidence

According to Bloomberg, this downgrade triggered the sharpest risk reversal in the dollar options market since the pandemic crash in 2020. One-year risk reversals hit minus 28 basis points — the lowest since records began in 2011.

CFTC data shows speculative traders now hold $16.5 billion in short dollar positions — a near-complete reversal from $31 billion in long bets just five months ago.

Why it matters:

  • Traders are losing faith in Trump’s policy consistency, especially after his back-and-forth tariff announcements.

  • Bloomberg says the dollar has dropped over 6% in 2025 — its worst start to a year since the index was created.

The takeaway: Even with Fed policy on pause and bond yields holding steady, the message is clear: unless Washington reins in its deficits, the global market is losing patience.

The IMF is urging the US to slash its deficit and stabilize its ballooning $36.8T debt. Following Moody’s credit downgrade and Trump’s proposed $4.5T tax cuts, markets are on edge. The IMF also warned that erratic trade policies could worsen global economic risks.

🧵 Thread of the day by @CPOfficialtx

Market-moving headlines 🔥

Yields on US government Treasury bonds jumped again Wednesday, as Wall Street turned its focus to President Donald Trump’s stalled tax bill and the growing fear that Washington is about to dig the deficit even deeper.

Mayor Eric Adams announced on May 20th that the city of New York was launching a crypto advisory council to bring fintech jobs into the Big Apple. He noted that NYC had sufficient experts to help New Yorkers navigate solutions through blockchain technology.

The Nigerian government has released a whitepaper in its efforts to create a National Blockchain Policy. The country’s Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bosun Tijani, announced the development of X.

As advances in AI continue to gain traction due to its transformative abilities, the tech is also seen as a potential threat to the Big Four and their decades-long history of professional service.

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