23 July 2026
BitMEX is shutting down, Bitcoin treasury companies are beginning to unwind questionable financing structures, and Michael Saylor has decided that self-custody advocates are paranoid anarchists. Meanwhile, Lightning Labs is quietly building tools that preserve the part of Bitcoin institutions seem increasingly eager to erase: user control.
BitMEX is shutting down after twelve years, and it feels like the end of an era—although, to be fair, that era ended a while ago. BitMEX gave the world the 100x leverage perpetual swap, along with a daily parade of liquidation notices that made your eyes water. People were getting vaporized for millions of dollars when Bitcoin was still trading below $20,000. It was reckless, spectacular and deeply embedded in Bitcoin’s early culture. The exchange may have faded from relevance years ago, but its closure still removes a recognizable landmark from Bitcoin history.
However, Michael Saylor is being Michael Saylor . . . again. And what Saylor said about Bitcoiners who believe in self-custody sounds like a deeply seated rancor. Asked whether concentrating Bitcoin with large regulated custodians could create seizure or confiscation risks, Saylor dismissed those concerns as the paranoia of “crypto anarchists.” He suggested that people warning about government confiscation are often trying to sell hardware wallets, passports, guns, insurance policies or some other fear-based product. In one answer, he managed to insult self-custody advocates, hardware wallet manufacturers, jurisdictional consultants and a substantial portion of the people who spent years building Bitcoin before Strategy arrived with a corporate treasury department.
Self-custody is not some eccentric side hobby practiced by people hiding in bunkers amidst piles of MREs and a selection of large caliber rifles from the 1940's. It is one of the central reasons Bitcoin exists. The ability to hold an asset without requiring permission from a bank, government or financial intermediary is the point, or at least one of the points. When Saylor treats that principle as irresponsible paranoia, he is not merely criticizing a subgroup of Bitcoiners. He is criticizing Bitcoin’s foundational value proposition while continuing to wrap himself in the Bitcoin brand. Saylor still doesn't understand Bitcoin and I don't think he cares.
Then Strategy announced its involvement in a $15 million effort to support research into Bitcoin’s long-term security against quantum computing. Funding developers is good. Bitcoin developers should be funded. But context is important, and Saylor’s comments make the announcement difficult to view without suspicion. After publicly dismissing the people who care most about user sovereignty, he now wants to participate in deciding how Bitcoin should be protected. The consortium includes some of the largest financial institutions and custodians in the industry. It also looks increasingly like “Big Bitcoin”: powerful institutions claiming stewardship over a system whose original design was meant to reduce dependence on powerful institutions.
Always remember that you can run whatever "Bitcoin" you want but you must run a node to affect change (or resist change as the case may be).
The treasury-company landscape is beginning to show its cracks as well. The Smarter Web Company sold roughly 178 Bitcoin to repay a convertible financing instrument and said such instruments are not currently the "right capital solution for the company". Welcome to the party, pal. The corporate Bitcoin boom encouraged companies to issue increasingly complicated debt, buy Bitcoin and assume the price would continue moving in the correct direction forever. That works beautifully until someone flushes the toilet. When the market turns, the supposedly permanent treasury asset becomes the first thing sold to satisfy creditors.
Zaibo Technology’s proposed deal is more interesting because it would receive approximately 3,500 Bitcoin as consideration in a transaction that could also shift control of the company’s board. This isn't a business selling shares and receiving Bitcoin. It looks more like Bitcoin being used as a vehicle to acquire control of a public company. The coins move onto the company’s balance sheet, but the party providing them may effectively gain control of the destination. It is less like spending Bitcoin and more like sailing a Trojan horse across the ocean, taking the country and then announcing that the gold inside the horse belongs to the country . . . which you now control.
Against all of this institutional maneuvering, Lightning Labs (God bless them) released Wavelength, a toolkit designed to let developers and autonomous AI agents add self-custodial Bitcoin payments without operating nodes, managing channels or sourcing liquidity themselves. Easier access without surrendering control is always a welcome path. Users keep their keys, applications gain simple payment tools, and participants retain the ability to exit to the Bitcoin blockchain unilaterally. While one corner of the industry explains why you should trust custodians, another is doing the difficult work of making self-custody usable. One side is trying to make Bitcoin fit the existing financial system. The other is trying to make Bitcoin work better as Bitcoin.
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Michael Saylor self-custody comments
Big Bitcoin institutions
BitMEX shutdown
Bitcoin treasury company risks
Lightning Labs Wavelength
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