Bitcoin

The crypto-enthusiast’s mantra—“just add Bitcoin and watch the efficient frontier fly”—runs into a hard empirical wall when you extend the sample, tighten the econometrics, and force the asset to compete on identical risk-adjusted footing with equities. Alistair Milne’s new SSRN paper applies a textbook Markowitz mean–variance framework to a two-asset universe (S&P 500 vs. Bitcoin) and finds that the ex-ante optimal long-term weight on BTC is not merely small; it is outright negative. In other words, a rational, variance-averse allocator who believes expected returns equal historical equity premia plus a fair compensation for BTC’s non-diversifiable volatility should be short, not long, the flagship digital token.

Bitcoin is one of the most widely discussed financial assets of the modern era. Since its inception, it has evolved from a niche digital experiment into a globally recognized investment instrument with institutional adoption and billions in daily trading volume. Despite its inherent volatility, Bitcoin has demonstrated a strong long-term growth trajectory, making it an attractive candidate for trend-based and momentum-oriented trading strategies. In this study, we apply concepts from technical analysis to construct and refine a trend-following strategy for Bitcoin, progressing step by step from a simple MACD setup toward an improved multi-timeframe model.

MicroStrategy has become one of the most polarizing companies in public markets. Once a conventional business intelligence firm, it has transformed into the world’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin proxy, holding over a million BTC on its balance sheet and continuously raising capital to buy more. Supporters praise it as a visionary “Bitcoin ETF with leverage,” while critics argue it is an irrationally overvalued vehicle whose market capitalization regularly trades far above the fair value of its underlying assets. The persistent premium — the gap between MicroStrategy’s equity value and the market value of its Bitcoin holdings — has puzzled analysts, defied traditional valuation logic, and raised the question: why does this spread exist, and why does it not close through arbitrage? A recent academic paper, Valuing MicroStrategy, offers a structural model that explains this phenomenon and sheds light on how the firm’s unique financing mechanics allow its stock price to exceed the value of its assets.

Cryptocurrency markets have matured into a distinct asset class characterized by extreme volatility, deep liquidity pools, and worldwide retail participation. Traditional equity and commodity markets exhibit a well-documented pre-holiday effect, where returns on trading days immediately preceding public holidays tend to outperform other days. Given that Bitcoin is often described as the archetypal absolute risk asset, it is natural to hypothesize that any calendar-driven anomalies observed in equities should manifest—or even amplify—in crypto markets.

However, unlike equity markets, where institutional investors and marketing calendars drive collective behavior, crypto markets are more dispersed, retail-dominated, and influenced by nontraditional information flows. This article investigates whether the classic pre-holiday effect applies to Bitcoin and assesses the extent to which it can be amplified by an attention-grabbing momentum filter based on local price highs.

Understanding how Bitcoin-related instruments can fit into traditional portfolios is increasingly relevant for investors. Some risk-averse investors do not like to hold cryptocurrencies in their portfolios strategically; however, they may be open to investing in crypto-linked assets on a tactical level. In this context, our goal is to explore how we can provide short-term Bitcoin exposure while contributing to overall portfolio balance and potential downside protection.

After years of waiting, the recent launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs marked a significant milestone in the cryptocurrency market, making Bitcoin even more accessible for investors. Spot ETFs provide a convenient and regulated way to gain exposure to Bitcoin without the need to hold the digital asset directly, potentially attracting a broader range of market participants. Many investors are waiting to see this change’s long-term impact on the cryptocurrency’s price while putting their faith in the potentially significant returns from Bitcoin within their investment portfolios. These events are taking place after two significant milestones in Bitcoin’s history – the introduction of BTC futures in 2017 and the launch of the BTC futures ETF (BITO) in 2021. While examining the whole history of Bitcoin may give the impression of a new super asset, we need to set realistic expectations. What have all these historical changes brought, and what lessons can we learn from similar occurrences involving other assets throughout history?