04-17-2026Price:

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Goldman pivots to Bitcoin yield products

Friday, April 17, 2026 · from 2 podcasts
2 SOURCESBitcoin AndBankless
  • Goldman Sachs launches Bitcoin ETF yield products for risk-averse clients.
  • Michael Saylor’s STRC offers 11.5% yield, shifting volatility to equity holders.
  • Kevin Warsh discloses $100M+ crypto stakes, signaling institutional embrace.

Goldman Sachs is no longer resisting Bitcoin - it’s repackaging it for Wall Street. The bank recently filed for a premium income ETF using covered calls on Bitcoin holdings, designed to generate steady yield while capping upside. According to David Bennett on Bitcoin And, this is a product for clients who want exposure without conviction - effectively selling optionality to avoid holding BTC outright.

The move mirrors a broader institutional shift. Six weeks after Michael Saylor unveiled STRC - his Bitcoin-backed preferred stock paying an 11.5% monthly dividend - Goldman is engineering similar yield structures, but through ETF wrappers. Saylor’s model pushes volatility and duration risk onto MicroStrategy’s common equity, allowing the company to capture the float. He argues that with Bitcoin returning ~29% annually, paying out 10% in yield is sustainable and scalable.

"Saylor strips the volatility and duration from the instrument and pushes those risks onto MicroStrategy's common equity holders."

- Bankless, Bankless

This isn’t just financial innovation - it’s a strategic play to absorb market supply. Saylor believes each $10 billion in new credit removes a year’s worth of mined Bitcoin from circulation, tightening liquidity and lifting the price floor. The real catalyst? Regulatory normalization. Once Basel rules stop penalizing banks for holding Bitcoin, traditional credit against BTC collateral becomes viable, ending reliance on shadow banking systems that re-hypothecate coins and create short pressure.

Meanwhile, the political class is catching up. Potential Fed Chair Kevin Warsh disclosed over $100 million in crypto holdings, including positions in Solana and DeFi protocols. As Bennett notes, the irony is sharp: the same institutions that called Bitcoin "rat poison" are now deeply invested. The war isn’t over - Wall Street just switched sides.

"The legacy system is no longer fighting the asset; they are scrambling to occupy the catbird seat before the price explodes further."

- David Bennett, Bitcoin And

The pivot is real. Yield engineering, credit networks, and regulatory lobbying are now central to Bitcoin’s institutional phase. The question isn’t whether banks will adopt it - it’s how much of the upside they’ll trade away to make it palatable to their clients.

BTC MarketsETFsRegulationAdoption
Michael SaylorMicroStrategyBitcoinFederal Reserve

Source Intelligence

- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes

Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News

Crypto Warshing Machine | Bitcoin News • Apr 14

  • Goldman Sachs filed for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF. This covered-call strategy uses spot Bitcoin ETF shares to sell call options, generating income while capping upside. Goldman already holds over $1B in spot Bitcoin ETFs like BlackRock's iShares and Fidelity's Wise Origin.
  • Deutsche Börse acquired a 1.5% stake in Kraken's parent company for $200M, valuing Kraken at roughly $13.3B. This follows ICE's $200M investment in OKX earlier this year.
  • Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Warsh disclosed holdings in over 20 crypto entities, including DYDX, Dapper Labs, Solana, and Polychain. Reports indicate his total holdings exceed $100M.
  • UK Liberal Democrat Daisy Cooper called for the FCA to investigate Nigel Farage over his £2M Bitcoin purchase through Stack BTC, where he holds a 6.3% stake. The probe focuses on potential market abuse or conflicts of interest.
  • A fake Ledger Live Mac app stole over $9.5M from more than 50 users in one week, including musician G. Love who lost 5.92 BTC. Stolen funds were laundered via KuCoin.
  • Foundry Digital launched a Zcash mining pool that captured 29% of the network's hash rate in its first month, reducing ViaBTC's dominance from 68% to 37%. Zcash's market cap is $6.2B.
  • At the time of recording, Bitcoin's price was $75,480 with a $1.5T market cap. There were 20,015,579.25 BTC in circulation.
Also from this episode: (4)

Payments (1)

  • The US Department of Justice opened a $40M compensation process for victims of the OneCoin fraud. Victims can file claims at 1coinremission.com until June 30. The scheme defrauded investors of $4B between 2014 and 2019.

Corruption (1)

  • OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023. Co-founder Ruja Ignatova remains at large with a $5M US bounty.

Markets (1)

  • Kraken faced an extortion attempt where attackers claimed access to customer data. About 2,000 individuals may have had information viewed.

AI & Tech (1)

  • The UK AI Security Institute found Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview model achieved a 73% success rate on expert-level cybersecurity tasks. It autonomously identified thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities across major operating systems.
BTC MarketsFedBankingAI InfrastructureDigital Sovereignty
Bankless
Bankless

"Fix the Money, Fix the World" — Michael Saylor's Master Plan (plus questions on Quantum and Ethereum) • Apr 13

  • Michael Saylor's 21-year thesis forecasts Bitcoin's price will reach $20-21 million per coin, implying a $400 trillion market cap as it becomes the world's dominant digital capital.
  • Saylor sees Bitcoin's long-term annualized growth rate averaging 29%, decelerating from the past five-year rate of 37%. He believes the asset is currently oversold and will be much higher by year-end.
  • MicroStrategy's STRC instrument is a variable-rate monthly preferred stock designed to strip away volatility and duration, offering pure yield. It recently traded with less than 2% trailing 30-day volatility, making it one of the S&P 500's least volatile securities.
  • Saylor frames STRC as asset-backed credit, converting a volatile capital asset (Bitcoin) into a stable income instrument. The model pays investors a fraction (e.g., one-third) of Bitcoin's expected capital appreciation as a dividend, using over-collateralization to manage risk.
  • Key drivers for Saylor's $20 million Bitcoin thesis include global regulatory recognition as a capital asset, bank credit networks forming against Bitcoin collateral, and the securitization wave via ETFs and digital credit instruments like STRC.
  • Saylor argues the current price suppression stems from re-hypothecation within the crypto shadow banking system, where cheap loans require collateral to be re-lent, creating selling pressure. Bank credit networks would reverse this by allowing non-rehypothecated loans.
  • MicroStrategy's business model is to perpetually issue digital credit (like STRC) to acquire more Bitcoin, aligning with equity investors who want amplification. Saylor sees no reason to diversify or stop accumulating, viewing Bitcoin as an infinitely scalable homogeneous collateral base.
  • Saylor's view on Ethereum has evolved, acknowledging its role as a leader in the staking network segment for tokenizing securities, currencies, and commodities. He sees regulatory clarity as the next step but believes the ultimate utility and winners will be determined by market competition.
  • Saylor's ultimate vision is to 'fix the money' by providing a billion people with a bank account yielding more than the inflation rate (e.g., 8%). This would be built on a stack of digital capital (Bitcoin), digital credit (STRC), and digital money distributed by traditional banks.
Also from this episode: (1)

Protocol (1)

  • On the quantum computing threat to Bitcoin's cryptography, Saylor adopts an optimist's stance, warning against iatrogenic solutions. He believes the Bitcoin community will upgrade in due time and cautions against panic driven by alarmism seeking clicks or funding.
BTC MarketsAdoptionBankingMacroProtocol

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