A 20-year old man in Taiwan went to a dermatology clinic for a strange rash that had developed across his shoulders and chest. The raised, red, and itchy condition had been bothering him for a full month. By this point, he had also developed patches of pigmented skin interlaced with the red rash.
According to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a skin biopsy showed swelling between his skin cells and inflammation around blood vessels, but testing came up negative for other common signs of skin conditions, leaving doctors with few leads. The doctors ultimately came to a diagnosis not by analyzing his skin further but by hearing about his diet.
The man told doctors that two months prior to his clinic appointment—a month before his rash developed—he had switched to a ketogenic diet, which is a high-fat but very low-carbohydrate eating pattern. This diet forces the body to shift from using glucose (sugar derived from carbohydrates) as an energy source to fat instead.
Welcome to Edition 8.26 of the Rocket Report! The past week has been one of advancements and setbacks in the rocket business. NASA rolled the massive rocket for the Artemis II mission to its launch pad in Florida, while Chinese launchers suffered back-to-back failures within a span of approximately 12 hours. Rocket Lab's march toward a debut of its new Neutron launch vehicle in the coming months may have stalled after a failure during a key qualification test. We cover all this and more in this week's Rocket Report.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Australia invests in sovereign launch. Six months after its first orbital rocket cleared the launch tower for just 14 seconds before crashing back to Earth, Gilmour Space Technologies has secured 217 million Australian dollars ($148 million) in funding that CEO Adam Gilmour says finally gives Australia a fighting chance in the global space race, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The funding round, led by the federal government's National Reconstruction Fund Corporation and superannuation giant Hostplus with $75 million each, makes the Queensland company Australia’s newest unicorn—a fast-growth start-up valued at more than $1 billion—and one of the country’s most heavily backed private technologyventures.
Epoch, a venture firm specializing in Bitcoin infrastructure, issued its second annual ecosystem report on January 21, 2026, forecasting robust growth for the asset despite a subdued 2025 performance.
The 186-page document analyzes Bitcoin’s price dynamics, adoption trends, regulatory outlook, and technological risks, positioning the cryptocurrency as a maturing monetary system. Key highlights include a prediction that Bitcoin will reach at least $150,000 USD by year-end, driven by institutional inflows and decoupling from equities. The report also anticipates the Clarity Act failing to pass, though its substance on asset taxonomy and regulatory authority may advance through SEC guidance. Additional forecasts cover gold rotations boosting Bitcoin by 50 percent, major asset managers allocating 2 percent to model portfolios, and Bitcoin Core maintaining implementation dominance.
Eric Yakes, CFA charterholder and managing partner at Epoch Ventures, brings over a decade of finance expertise to the Bitcoin space, having started his career in corporate finance and restructuring at FTI Consulting before advancing to private equity at Lion Equity Partners, where he focused on buyouts. He left traditional finance in recent years to immerse himself in Bitcoin, authoring the influential book “The 7th Property: Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution,” which explores Bitcoin’s role as a transformative monetary asset, and has since written extensively on its technologies and ecosystem. Yakes holds a double major in finance and economics from Creighton University, positioning him as a key voice in Bitcoin venture capital through Epoch, a firm dedicated to funding Bitcoin infrastructure.
The Death of the Four-Year Cycle
Bitcoin closed 2025 at $87,500, marking a 6 percent annual decline but an 84 percent four-year gain that ranks in the bottom 3 percent historically. The report states the death of the 4-year cycle in no uncertain terms: “We believe cycle theory is a relic of the past, and the cycles themselves probably never existed. The fact is that Bitcoin is boring and growing gradually now. We make the case for why gradual growth is precisely what will drive a ‘gradually, then suddenly’ moment.”
The report goes on to discuss cycle theory in depth, presenting a view of the future that’s becoming the new market expectation: less volatility to the downside, slow and steady growth to the upside.
Price action suggests a new bull market commenced in 2026, with 2025’s drop from $126,000 to $81,000 potentially being a self-fulfilling prophecy due to cycle expectations, as RSI remained below overbought since late 2024, suggesting bitcoin already went through a bear market and we are commencing a new kind of cycle.
Versus gold, Bitcoin is down 49 percent from its highs, in a bear market since December 2024. Gold’s meteoric rise presents a potential price catalyst for bitcoin; a small rebalancing reallocation from gold of 0.5% would induce greater inflows than the U.S. ETFs; at 5.5%, it would equal bitcoin’s market capitalization. Gold’s rise makes bitcoin more attractive on a relative basis, and the higher gold goes, the more likely a rotation into bitcoin. Timing analysis, as seen in the chart below, which counts days from the local top, suggests Bitcoin might be nearing a bottom versus Gold.
In terms of volatility bitcoin has aligned with mega-caps like Tesla, with 2025 averages for Nasdaq 100 leaders exceeding Bitcoin’s, suggesting a risk-asset decoupling and limiting drawdowns. Long-term stock correlations persist, but maturing credit markets and safe-haven narratives may pivot Bitcoin toward gold-like behavior.
The report goes in-depth into other potential catalysts for 2026, defending its bullish thesis, such as:
Consistent ETF Inflows
Nation State Adoption
Mega-cap Companies Allocating to Bitcoin
Wealth Managers Allocating Clients
Inheritance Allocation
FUD, Sentiment and Media Analysis
Analysis of 356,423 datapoints from 653 sources reveals a fractured sentiment landscape, with “Bitcoin is dead” narratives concluded. FUD is stable at 12-18 percent but the topics rotate, crime and legal themes are up 277 percent, while environmental FUD is down 41 percent.
A 125-point perception gap exists between conference attendees (+90 positive) while tech media is generally negative at (-35). UK outlets show 56-64 percent negativity, 2-3 times international averages.
The Lightning Network coverage dominates podcasts at 33 percent but garners only 0.28 percent mainstream coverage, a 119x disparity. Layer 2 solutions are not zero-sum, with Lightning at 58 percent mentions and Ark up 154 percent.
Media framing has caused mining sentiment to swing 67 points: mainstream outlets cover the sector at 75.6 percent positive, while Bitcoin communities view it at only 8.4 percent positive, underscoring the importance of narrative and audience credibility for mining companies.
Bitcoin Treasury Companies
More companies added Bitcoin to their balance sheets in 2025 than in any previous year, marking a major step in corporate adoption. Established firms that already held Bitcoin—known as Bitcoin treasury companies, or BtcTCs—bought even larger amounts, while new entrants went public specifically to raise money and purchase Bitcoin. According to the report, public company bitcoin holdings increased 82% y/y to ₿1.08 million and the number of public companies holding bitcoin grew from 69 to over 191 throughout 2025.65 Corporations own at least 6.4% of total Bitcoin supply – public companies 5.1% and private companies 1.3%. This created a clear boom-and-bust pattern throughout the year.
Company valuations rose sharply through mid-2025 before pulling back when the broader Bitcoin price corrected. The report explains that these public treasury companies offer investors easier access through traditional brokers, the ability to borrow against holdings, and even dividend payments, though with dilution risks. In contrast, buying and holding Bitcoin directly remains simpler and preserves the asset’s full scarcity.
Looking ahead, Epoch expects Japan’s Metaplanet to post the highest multiple on net asset value (mNAV)—a key valuation metric—among all treasury companies with a market cap above $1 billion. The firm also predicts that an activist investor or rival company will force the liquidation of one underperforming treasury firm to capture the discount between its share price and the actual value of its Bitcoin holdings.
Over time, these companies will stand out by offering competitive yields on their Bitcoin. In total, treasury companies acquired roughly 486,000 BTC during 2025, equal to 2.3 percent of the entire Bitcoin supply, drawing further corporate interest in Bitcoin. For business owners considering a Bitcoin treasury, the report highlights both the growth potential and the risks of public-market volatility.
The Bitcoin Treasury Companies section of the report explores:
The fundamentals of a Bitcoin treasury allocation including the potential benefits and risks of Bitcoin treasury company investing.
The 2025 timeline of Bitcoin Treasury companies.
Current valuations of BtcTCs.
Our opinion on BtcTCs broadly, and how we view them compared to owning Bitcoin directly.
Commentary on specific BtcTCs.
Predictions on Bitcoin treasury companies in the coming years.
Regulation Expectations for 2026
Epoch predicts the Clarity Act—a proposed bill to clarify digital asset oversight by dividing authority between the SEC and CFTC—will not pass Congress in 2026. However, the report expects the bill’s main ideas, including clear definitions for asset categories and regulatory jurisdiction, to advance through SEC rulemaking or guidance instead. The firm also forecasts Republican losses in the midterm elections, which could trigger new regulatory pressure on crypto, most likely in the form of consumer protection measures aimed at perceived industry risks. On high-profile legal cases, Epoch does not expect pardons for the founders of Samurai Wallet or Tornado Cash this year, though future legal appeals or related proceedings may ultimately support their defenses.
The report takes a critical view of recent legislative efforts, arguing that bills like the GENIUS Act (focused on stablecoins) and the Clarity Act prioritize industry lobbying over the concerns of everyday Bitcoin users, especially the ability to hold and control assets directly without third-party interference (self-custody).
The report points out a discrepancy between what crypto-owning voters want — a majority preferring above all, the right to transact. While the Clarity and Genius Acts focus on less popular special interests, they just fall within the 50% support range. Epoch warns that “This deviation between the will of the voters and the will of the largest industry players is an early warning sign of the potential harm from regulatory capture (intentional or otherwise)”.
The report is particularly critical of the way the GENIUS Act set up the regulatory structure for stablecoins. The paragraph on the topic is so poignant that it merits being printed in its entirety:
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss:
Last year, in our Bitcoin Banking Report, we discussed the structure of the 2-tier banking system in the US (see figure below). In this system, the Central Bank pays a yield on the deposits it receives from the Tier II Commercial banks, who then go on to share a portion of that yield with their depositors. Sound familiar?
The compromise structure in the GENIUS Act essentially creates a parallel banking system where stablecoin issuers play the role of Tier I Central Banks and the crypto exchanges play the role of Tier II Commercial Banks.
To make matters worse, stablecoin issuers are required to keep their reserves with regulated Tier II banks and are unlikely to have access to Fed Master accounts. The upshot of all this is that the GENIUS act converts a peer-to-peer payment mechanism into a heavily intermediated payment network that sits on top of another heavily intermediate payment network.”
The report goes into further depth on topics of regulation and regulatory capture risk, closing the topic with an analysis of how the CLARITY Act might and, in their opinion, should take shape.
Quantum Computing Risk
Concerns about quantum computing potentially breaking Bitcoin’s cryptography surfaced prominently in late 2025, in part contributing to institutional sell-offs as investors reacted to headlines about rapid advances in the field. The Epoch report attributes much of this reaction to behavioral biases, including loss aversion—where people fear losses more than they value equivalent gains—and herd mentality, in which market participants follow the crowd without independent assessment. The authors describe the perceived threat as significantly overhyped, noting that claims of exponential progress in quantum capabilities, often tied to “Neven’s Law,” lack solid observational evidence to date.
“Neven’s law states that the computational power of quantum computers increases at a double exponential rate of classical computers. If true, the timeline to break Bitcoin’s cryptography could be as short as 5 years.
However, Moore’s law was an observation. Neven’s law is not an observation because logical qubits are not increasing at such a rate.
Neven’s law is an expectation of experts. Based on our understanding of expert opinion in the fields we are knowledgeable about, we are highly skeptical of expert projections,” the Epoch report explained.
They add that current quantum computers have not succeeded in factoring numbers larger than 15, and error rates increase exponentially with scale, making reliable large-scale computation far from practical. The report argues that progress in physical qubits has not yet translated into the logical qubits or error-corrected systems needed for factorization of the large numbers underpinning Bitcoin’s security.
Implementing quantum-resistant signatures prematurely — which do exist — would introduce inefficiencies, consuming more block space on the network, while emerging schemes remain untested in real-world conditions. Until meaningful advances in factorization occur, Epoch concludes the quantum threat does not warrant immediate priority or network changes.
Mining Expectations
The report forecasts that no company among the top ten public Bitcoin miners will generate more than 30 percent of its revenue from AI computing services during the 2026 fiscal year. This outcome stems from significant delays in the development and deployment of the necessary infrastructure for large-scale AI workloads, preventing miners from pivoting as quickly as some market narratives suggested.
Media coverage of Bitcoin mining shows a stark divide depending on who is framing the discussion. Mainstream outlets tend to portray the industry positively—75.6 percent of coverage is favorable, often emphasizing energy innovation, job creation, or economic benefits—while conversations within Bitcoin communities remain far more skeptical, with only 8.4 percent positive sentiment. This 67-point swing in net positivity highlights how framing and audience shape perceptions of the same sector, with community credibility remaining a critical factor for mining companies seeking to maintain support among Bitcoin holders.
The report has a lot more to offer including analysis of layer two systems and Bitcoin adoption data on multiple fronts, it can be read on Epoch’s website for free.
In a report a week before its Davos conference, the World Economic Foundation said 64% world business leaders are most worried about cyber fraud, replacing ransomware at their top concern. AI vulnerabilities also ranked high, as did threats fueled by geopolitics. The group argued that a coordinated approach to cybersecurity is needed.
Welcome to Edition 8.25 of the Rocket Report! All eyes are on Florida this weekend as NASA rolls out the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to its launch site in Florida for the Artemis II mission. NASA has not announced a launch date yet, and this will depend in part on how well a "wet dress rehearsal" goes with fueling the rocket. However, it is likely the rocket has a no-earlier-than launch date of February 8. Our own Stephen Clark will be in Florida for the rollout on Saturday, so be sure and check back here for coverage.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
MaiaSpace scores a major launch deal. The ArianeGroup subsidiary, created in 2022, has inked a major new launch contract with satellite operator Eutelsat, Le Monde reports. A significant portion of the 440 new satellites ordered by Eutelsat from Airbus to renew or expand its OneWeb constellation will be launched into orbit by the new Maia rocket. MaiaSpace previously signed two contracts: one with Exotrail for the launch of an orbital transfer, and the other for two satellites for the Toutatis mission, a defense system developed by U-Space.
Andy’s story is an all too familiar one for many executives leaving federal service.
Andy — not his real name — found what he thought was the perfect fit in the private sector after leaving federal service earlier this year. It was with a big company, in a sector he was intimately familiar with and the opportunities across the federal sector were growing.
But less than a year into his new position, Andy is joining the ever growing number of former federal employees who are hanging out their own shingle as a consultant.
“There was a little bit of a mismatch in expectations, probably both on my part and on the company’s part. I thought the role I would fill would make use of my background and skills at a policy level. But the company was looking for someone who was more technical and could help out at the tactical level,” said Andy, who requested anonymity in order to talk about his experience with a federal contractor. “Too many times people in these private sector companies don’t actually understand how to leverage government executives and government executive expertise.”
Andy’s story likely will be repeated by hundreds of federal executives over the next year.
If you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn over the last month, you may have seen what seems to be a constant stream of executives leaving federal service. Whether they’re retiring or they took the deferred resignation program or it’s just through normal attrition, the exodus of federal executives feels more acute than ever before.
Just take a look at the numbers:
There are 551 fewer Senior Executive Service (SES) members in 2026 than in 2025, according to the Office of Personnel Management’s new workforce data website. The number of SESers dropped to 7,336 as of Jan. 8, 2026, from 7,887 in August 2024.
Meanwhile the pipeline of people at the General Schedule, or GS-14 and GS-15 levels, who are in line to become SESers, also saw significant one-year reductions.
The reduction of employees at the GS-14 level comes after years of growth. For example, in 2019, agencies had 117,600 GS-14s, but the 8,000 drop between 2024 and 2025 basically erases all the growth since 2023.
The changes to employees at the GS-15 level are less dramatic, but still erases growth, albeit smaller growth, since 2021.
The reduction of senior leaders isn’t all that different than what agencies saw across the board last year. There are 219,000 fewer federal employees in 2025 than in 2024.
Interestingly enough, OPM says the median age of the federal worker remains at 47 years old, but the percentage of federal employees who are eligible to retire dropped to 13.5% from 15%. The Small Business Administration and NASA have the largest percentage of employees, more than 25% respectively, who are eligible to retire.
OPM says 105,858 retired from federal service in 2025. The Defense Department saw the largest number of employees leave via retirement at 31,689, while the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Justice, Treasury and Health and Human Services all saw more than 6,000 employees leave via retirement.
Pipeline of future leaders narrows
Concerns over the impending retirement wave isn’t new. Good government groups and employee organizations have been highlighting their concerns for decades. But with the combination of retirements, employees taking the DRP, the administration firing probationary employees and people just plain quitting, there is more concern than ever about the pipeline of current and up-and-coming federal managers.
Michelle Sutter, the director of the Senior Executives Association board, spent over 15 years in government before leaving last year under the DRP. Sutter said the one-year reductions in SESers, as well as GS-14s and GS-15s, is worrisome for several reasons.
“In conversations with our members, a consistent theme that we hear is that we have executive-level employees that are literally, at times, doing the jobs of three to four people, and that’s unprecedented, because it tells us that regardless of whether you’re at the operational level or the executive level, you’ve got people functioning in roles sometimes that are outside of their daily operations that they would normally do,” Sutter said in an interview with Federal News Network. “The effect of this is it puts stress on the leaders. It makes it difficult to focus on mission delivery. If you’re having a tough time focusing on mission delivery, it makes it difficult to provide services to the American people. It also creates a stressful situation and leads to burnout because leaders are in a position where it’s difficult to lead effectively when you’re trying to manage daily operations, doing multiple roles yourself, and then you’re expected to lead teams and manage programs and make sure that you meet the needs of the agencies.”
Sutter said GS-14s and GS-15s, who are more at the operational level, are facing similar challenges.
While these GS-14 and GS-15s may now have more opportunities to step into acting or temporary roles that would help them prepare to move into the SES, burnout, cuts to training and education opportunities and the need to deal with constant change remain a big challenge for these employees.
Sutter said the pipeline of senior managers who are ready to move into the SES has also been narrowed.
“We need to really focus on our career senior executives. I think over the next year, success is really going to depend on stabilizing leadership teams being disciplined about the use of different roles, whether they be acting or permanent, and really investing in executive development and recognizing that executive effectiveness is critical to mission delivery,” Sutter said. “This is not about routine federal leadership as it was in the past. How agencies support career executives now will absolutely shape continuity, performance and leadership capacity well beyond the transition.”
Sutter added that SEA was pleased to see OPM coming out with new training and education programs. She said SEA hopes agencies have the funding and give employees the time to take advantage of these courses.
Advice for those joining the private sector
For those executives jumping on the wave of leaving federal service, the private sector may be just as challenging. But the experiences of Andy and others demonstrate what executives need to consider as they move into industry.
“The job market is pretty tough for a lot of people today. It’s flooded. It’s kind of a buyer’s market at the moment,” Andy said. “It’s easy to say, you really need to make sure that, that you’ve got the right fit. But for somebody who really needs a job and needs the income, that may be easier said than done. But I would say, ideally, you really should be conscious about that fit aspect. The one thing that I found as I talked to other government executives, who had worked with industry, is they made a similar comment that they thought part of the challenge was that a lot of times people in these companies don’t actually understand how to leverage government executives and government executive expertise.”
Tim Teal, the CEO and founder The Bellwether Group and a former National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command official, posted some solid advice on LinkedIn about what federal executives should keep in mind as they are leaving government.
Teal said most of the exits he’s seen were not about competence. They were about mismatched expectations. “The executive thinks they are there to advise and shape strategy. The company expects immediate impact,” he said. “In government, authority is derived from role, statute, and mission. In industry especially government contracting sector, authority is derived from revenue, margin and growth.”
Another rule of thumb Teal highlighted was about reputation. He said if you think your reputation will protect you from layoff or other challenges, you are incorrect. Teal said reputations open doors. Performance keeps them open.
“The most successful former government leaders I know didn’t cling to status. They learned the business. They tied their value to outcomes. And they never confused respect with immunity,” he wrote to Federal News Network in an email. “The biggest mistake I see is people negotiating the title before they understand the business. If you do not know how the company makes money, who buys from them and where they are hurting, you are walking in blind. Don’t accept roles with vague charters. If no one can clearly explain what success looks like in six months, that role probably will not last six months.”
As for Andy, who is now going out on his own as a consultant, he said while his experience was definitely eye opening, he doesn’t blame the company or himself for things not working out. But he does offer one piece of advice: “Trust your gut. I did have some sort of ticklish feelings in my gut, like, that’s not the answer that I was looking for.”
Welcome to Edition 8.24 of the Rocket Report! We're back from a restorative holiday, and there's a great deal Eric and I look forward to covering in 2026. You can get a taste of what we're expecting this year in this feature. Other storylines are also worth watching this year that didn't make the Top 20. Will SpaceX's Starship begin launching Starlink satellites? Will United Launch Alliance finally get its Vulcan rocket flying at a higher cadence? Will Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket be certified by the US Space Force? I'm looking forward to learning the answers to these questions, and more. As for what has already happened in 2026, it has been a slow start on the world's launch pads, with only a pair of SpaceX missions completed in the first week of the year. Only? Two launches in one week by any company would have been remarkable just a few years ago.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
New launch records set in 2025. The number of orbital launch attempts worldwide last year surpassed the record 2024 flight rate by 25 percent, with SpaceX and China accounting for the bulk of the launch activity, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Including near-orbital flight tests of SpaceX’s Starship-Super Heavy launch system, the number of orbital launch attempts worldwide reached 329 last year, an annual analysis of global launch and satellite activity by Jonathan’s Space Report shows. Of those 329 attempts, 321 reached orbit or marginal orbits. In addition to five Starship-Super Heavy launches, SpaceX launched 165 Falcon 9 rockets in 2025, surpassing its 2024 record of 134 Falcon 9 and two Falcon Heavy flights. No Falcon Heavy rockets flew in 2025. US providers, including Rocket Lab Electron orbital flights from its New Zealand spaceport, added another 30 orbital launches to the 2025 tally, solidifying the US as the world leader in space launch.
Ledn, one of the world’s largest bitcoin lenders, announced its Open Book Report, a reserves transparency benchmark designed to expose the kind of risk that caused the 2022 FTX-driven crypto crash.
According to a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine, “Traditional lenders (including Citi, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, Schwab, and Bank of America) are reportedly entering the space amid a regulatory vacuum in terms of rehypothecation practices and proof of reserves.” With the passing of the GENIUS Act, which greenlit treasury-backed stablecoins, Wall Street now has a road to service the crypto market and even upgrade its own rails and infrastructure.
But there are still those who call for clearer regulatory structure for crypto counter parties, Ledn points out that “Global rules on crypto capital requirements & proof of reserves remain in flux, with the US and UK refusing to implement Basel’s proposed framework,” adding that “IOSCO is pushing regulators to hold crypto custody and lending to the standards of traditional finance, yet almost no institution has disclosed how bitcoin collateral is managed, whether it’s rehypothecated, or what happens in a liquidation scenario.”
John Glover, Chief Investment Officer at Ledn and former Managing Director at Barclays, explained that “If lenders do not have to disclose how they use client collateral, the clients become the leverage. We saw what happened when BlockFi, Celsius, and Voyager operated in the dark. The difference now is that the balance sheets are bigger.” He warned that “This is how we get a 2022-style lending crisis at institutional scale.”
Ledn’s Open Book Report, launched today, showcases “the industry’s longest-running Proof of Reserves,” according to the press release. The report exposes Ledn’s BTC loan book, collateral levels, and aggregate loan-to-value ratios. According to the report, the Network Firm LLP, a U.S.-based certified public accounting firm, independently audited & confirmed that 100% of collateral is held in custody.
The report also reveals “$868 million in outstanding BTC-backed loans, with 18,488 BTC in collateral posted, held 100% BTC in custody; all BTC collateral is held in on-chain addresses and/or custodial accounts.” Ledn’s average loan-to-value ratio stands at 55%, an aggregate LTV well below industry liquidation thresholds. Since 2018, the company has funded “$10.2 billion in lifetime loans across 47,000 originations.”
This framework looks to move the industry past one-off snapshots—starting with monthly disclosures and laying the groundwork for more continuous, real-time transparency over time. Unlike self-reported wallet addresses, Ledn’s approach combines monthly reporting on loan book metrics—including outstanding loans, collateral posted, and average LTV—with reporting from The Network Firm LLP. Ledn also maintains Proof of Reserves attestations on a semiannual basis (every two quarters), confirming that assets exceed client liabilities, with “Merkle tree methodology” enabling clients to confirm their balances were included.
While some companies have announced “proof of reserves” by publishing wallet addresses, Glover argues this falls short. “True transparency requires independent reporting, regular updates, and methodologies anyone can check,” said Glover. “Clients shouldn’t have to take anyone’s word for it.”
Ledn recently received a strategic investment from Tether and has an impeccable track record of protecting client assets across its loan originations, surviving the 2022 crypto lender crisis, and at least one other bear market before that.
The press release warns that “as traditional financial institutions accelerate their entry into bitcoin-backed lending, Ledn’s Open Book Report establishes the baseline against which these new entrants should be held, before regulators mandate it.”
Based on more than 3,000 responses from cybersecurity professionals in nearly 90 countries, our Trend Micro Defenders Survey Report 2025 shines a bright light on the current state of cyber risk management. From the impact of cloud and AI on IT environments to top technical and human challenges, this year’s findings have a lot to say about the pressures security teams are under and what organizations are doing to tighten their grip on cyber risk.
No matter if you are experienced penetration tester, or beginner red teamer, if you have technical skills better than anyone on earth, or you’re just a script kiddie. All what maters is how you will present your findings. Especially if you are not only a bug hunter, but when you work in a corporation, and the results of your test needs to be
No matter if you are experienced penetration tester, or beginner red teamer, if you have technical skills better than anyone on earth, or you’re just a script kiddie. All what maters is how you will present your findings. Especially if you are not only a bug hunter, but when you work in a corporation, and the results of your test needs to be
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The man's chest and shoulders, showing his rash and hyperpigmentation.
Credit:
New England Journal of Medicine, 2026
