📢 January Signals

🗒️ Market update
2024 was another exceptional year for Bitcoin and crypto, and a great year for our MTC Digital Asset fund, which was once again recognised by the AFR as one of the best performing funds in Australia, returning 107% for the 2024 calendar year.
And 2025 is shaping up to be even better, the Trump team have wasted no time in setting their crypto agenda: let’s dive in.
We were expecting an Executive Order rescinding the SAB 121 (SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, which effectively prevented Wall St from providing custody services for crypto) following Biden’s veto. However, in an encouraging whole-of-government effort the SEC just eliminated the Bulletin at its source.

SEC commissioner Hester Peirce shared the news earlier today, and Wall St wasted no time in responding! Just 30 minutes later JPMorgan announced that it would offer not only custody, but also credit facilities against Bitcoin. Yes, Bitcoin is now accepted as collateral by one of the world largest banks.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HOW BIG THIS IS! This development:
✅ Legitimizes Bitcoin as a mainstream asset
✅ Unlocks institutional liquidity
✅ Strengthens Bitcoin’s role as a store of value and “pristine collateral”
✅ Accelerates Wall Street adoption, paving the way for greater financialization via derivatives, structured products, and other financial instruments

An Executive Order has also established a Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets to strengthen U.S. leadership in digital finance. This group will establish a regulatory framework and evaluate the formation of a strategic national digital asset stockpile.
Is this the touted Strategic Bitcoin Reserve under another name? Maybe, Although I do struggle to see how it’s ‘strategic’ to announce to the world that the U.S. Government will be buying a significant amount of Bitcoin, essentially inviting the market to front run them- a very inefficient strategy!
That said, I do believe this is happening, and so do 12 U.S. States who have each proposed bills to build their own strategic reserves. Just like Michael Saylor announces Microstrategy Bitcoin purchases after the event I hope the U.S. can and will do the same.
Solana ETF odds spiked after CME announced the launch SOL futures, commencing 10 February, paving the way for SOL ETF to follow the established path by the BTC and ETH ETFs.
A couple of key points on Solana ETFs:
1) Solana’s market cap is much lower (30% of ETH’s), so price will respond more aggressively to significant inflows.
2) The Grayscale GSOL product has recently traded at a several hundred percent premium to NAV, whereas both BTC and ETH Grayscale products traded at a discount. This signifies stronger institutional demand for SOL, and unlike BTC and ETH, there won’t be massive sell pressure from the Grayscale product this time around.

Trump (or more accurately his team) launched his meme coin on Solana for a reason—it’s the only chain that could support the volume.
To put this into perspective:
- TheNasdaq typically supports around 44 million transactions per day
•Solana has been averaging over 60 million daily transactions for months
Real world assets require this performance for mass tokenisation (Larry Fink is telling us this is happening) and right now Solana is the only place that can support it.

🚀 AFR Coverage: MTC Digital Asset Fund

In a recent article by The Australian Financial Review, the MTC Digital Asset fund was recognised as one of only 3 funds across Australia to achieve >100% return for 2024. You can read more here:
Get in touch to discuss how digital assets fit in your portfolio:
🗓️ Key dates to watch
- 7/10 January – U.S. Jobs data JOLTs/Non Farm Payrolls
- 15 January – U.S. Inflation data
- 20 January – DAY 1 for the Trump Administration
- 29 January – FOMC meeting
💡The Merkle Tree Capital “Why?”
We know accessing the digital asset sector is challenging, presenting a new set of risks that most investors are not familiar with, and there is a lot of sub-standard information flying around. That is why we created an actively managed unit trust aiming to hold the best digital assets that will form the basis of the ecosystem over the next 5-10 years.
Investors can now access this new asset class without concerns around self-custody or dealing with unknown counterparties, simplify their tax reporting, avoid single asset risk, maximise yield, and access institutional risk management and portfolio construction.
🧠 SMART – actively managed, enhance risk adjusted returns, sophisticated portfolio construction, staking yield, simple exposure – no passwords or digital wallets
🔒 SECURE – institutional custody, staking in cold storage, insurance, counterparty due diligence
🪙 CRYPTO – Blockchain eliminates intermediaries, lowers costs and improves efficiency by bringing transparency and security.