16 July 2026
Trump’s crypto conflicts are threatening the CLARITY Act, Tether is expanding deeper into Latin America, and a new Bitcoin treasury company backed by some respected names is promising something more substantial than the usual balance-sheet gimmick. The question is whether it can resist the temptation to turn Bitcoin into another pile of leveraged financial products.
The latest obstacle facing the CLARITY Act is almost too obvious. President Trump is meeting with senators to discuss ethics provisions that could restrict senior government officials from maintaining personal crypto business interests. In other words, the bill’s future may depend on whether Trump supports legislation that could limit his own ability to profit from the industry.
I would not bet heavily on that happening.
The market has placed an absurd amount of emotional weight on legislation like this. CLARITY is not a particularly good bill. It does not appear to offer the level of developer protection that would make me start waving pom-poms for it. But if it fails, the market will probably treat that failure as a major rejection of Bitcoin and crypto, even though Bitcoin itself will continue producing blocks exactly as it did before.
It's a most deliciously fragile psychology we are dealing with. Too many people own Bitcoin without understanding the asset. They don't understand the trade, the ETFs, the treasury strategies, or the leverage. They LOVE the promise that some famous executive says it is going to $500,000 though. They simply do not understand why Bitcoin exists. So when Washington produces a negative headline, they sell first and think later.
But is the juice worth the squeeze? Orange Juice, a new permanent-capital company backed by Jeff Booth, Lyn Alden, Ricardo Salinas, and others. The company plans to acquire American businesses generating between $1 million and $10 million in annual cash flow, hold them for the long term, and place excess capital into a Bitcoin treasury.
On its face, this is far more interesting than another company borrowing money to buy Bitcoin while producing little of value itself. Orange Juice is at least beginning with actual businesses. These companies have customers, employees, products, services, and cash flow. If the strategy is to acquire durable businesses, improve their operations, keep their identities intact, and save a portion of the profits in Bitcoin, that could work exceptionally well.
But then the warning signs start appearing.
There is talk of conservative leverage, capital markets, artificial-intelligence adoption, a future public listing, and a “liquid ownership currency.” Maybe that language is harmless. Maybe it simply means publicly traded equity. But after watching the Bitcoin treasury-company trend evolve into an increasingly complicated machine of preferred shares, convertible debt, leverage, and derivative products, I am no longer inclined to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
I like Jeff Booth. I like Lyn Alden. They and Ricardo Salinas appears to understand why Bitcoin matters. These are not unserious people. But the structure could drift into the same financial theater we have already seen elsewhere. The temptation will always be there to stop focusing on the underlying companies and start manufacturing securities that promise yield, access, leverage, or some new form of Bitcoin exposure.
That would be a mistake.
The best version of Orange Juice is painfully simple: buy good companies, operate them responsibly, generate real profits, and save some of those profits in Bitcoin. No magic. No double-digit preferred yield. No elaborate financial engineering. No pretending that issuing another product tied to the price of Bitcoin is the same thing as building a productive business.
On to Latin America where Tether’s continued expansion offers a related lesson. Stablecoins have product-market fit whether Bitcoiners like it or not. People use them because they solve an immediate problem. Tether is investing in companies and infrastructure in regions where demand is real, while regulated competitors such as Circle gain favor in Western markets by complying with the local political order.
A dollar token still inherits the inflation of the dollar, along with an additional layer of issuer and counterparty risk. But denying its usefulness does not make that usefulness disappear. Tether is following demand, and Latin America may be the clearest place for it to defend its position.
The opposite approach is what we are seeing from companies that force artificial intelligence into products that do not need it. Ledger’s new agent toolkit supposedly allows AI software to inspect wallets, prepare transactions, and propose payments while requiring final approval on a Ledger device. It's not a breakthrough. It's more like a complicated marketing funnel designed to sell additional hardware.
“Agents propose, humans approve” is a nice slogan. It does not answer the more important question: why does an AI agent need to be involved with your Bitcoin wallet at all?
The safest rule remains the old one. Keep only what you are willing to lose in a hot wallet. Use narrow, purpose-built tools. Minimize the number of systems, currencies, applications, agents, and companies standing between you and your keys. Every additional feature creates another place for something to go wrong.
Whether it is legislation, treasury companies, stablecoins, social tokens, or AI-enabled wallets, the industry keeps trying to make Bitcoin more complicated than it needs to be.
The people who succeed over the long term will probably be the ones who resist that pressure. Build something useful. Produce cash flow. Protect the keys. Hold Bitcoin. Stop trying to turn every simple idea into a financial product, an AI strategy, or a regulatory victory parade.
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Bitcoin treasury companies
Orange Juice Bitcoin treasury
Bitcoin permanent capital company
CLARITY Act crypto ethics
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