Strategy CEO Phong Le and Blockstream CEO Adam Back appeared on a panel moderated by Natalie Brunell on Wednesday that covered Bitcoin financial strategy, tokenization, digital credit and the enduring mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto.
The conversation painted a picture of a changing financial system, with Bitcoin at the center.
Le opened with a striking observation about the Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings. The company now holds 818,334, placing it second only to one entity.
“There is only one individual entity with more Bitcoin than strategy,” Le said. “It’s Satoshi.”
The firm is on track to reach 1 million BTC in the next few months, a milestone that would cement its place in financial history.
Digital credit in the bitcoin space
Much of the discussion centered on Stretch, or STRC, Strategy’s perennial favorite stock that pays an 11.5% annual dividend with the proceeds used to buy Bitcoin.
Le was direct about why the product matters. “This product does good,” he said, contrasting it with industries such as tobacco and processed foods.
Investors use STRC as a place to park short-term money, and it has served as a lower barrier for people seeking BTC exposure. Layer 2 products and DeFi protocols are now being built on top of it, Le said, describing STRC as “the most important credit product ever” and a cornerstone for bringing BTC and DeFi together.
Back addressed the intersection of cypherpunk ideology and institutional funding, a tension the Bitcoin community has long struggled with.
He said BTC’s acceptance of sovereign wealth funds and private funds is “a sign of success”, not a compromise. Cypherpunks, he explained, believed in capital formation and free markets, not just cryptographic privacy.
Back said that finance companies exist to grow Bitcoin per stock, and when they do, individual holders will benefit as well.
Le reinforced the point, saying he learned a lot from Back when they first met. “Cypherpunks are gifted minds who understand the markets very well,” Le said, framing the movement as one that has always operated at the intersection of technology and capital.
Regarding tokenization, both men saw it as the next structural shift. Le described it as “the digitization of markets,” with blockchain providing the layer of transparency.
He pointed to tap-to-pay as an analogy. “Why can’t you do it to a stock, peer to peer?” he asked. Back added that tokenization enables 24/7 trading, the use of assets as collateral, and unlocks value in assets that are difficult to discover or trade, such as private notes and contracts.
When asked if major banks would compete in bitcoin digital credit, Le said he expected they would. He compared it to Amazon reshaping retail and forcing Walmart to respond.
Then he added, “I would love to see Morgan Stanley on that list” regarding massive bitcoin companies.
The panel closed on a lighter note. Brunell asked Back about a New York Times investigation published earlier this month that named him as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Back, who denied the claim when the story broke, did not directly address it. “We’re in a very good place in terms of people adopting the technology,” he said.