Garlinghouse is right this time; relying on issuing debt to cycle and buy coins is indeed like walking a tightrope, and STR's 25% discount is the market's warning. It's time for the utility narrative to return, or else crypto will never break out of the cycle of leveraged nesting dolls.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse criticized Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor's strategy of continuously purchasing Bitcoin through financial engineering in an interview with CNBC, stating that it harms the entire crypto market. Garlinghouse said that the long-term value of digital assets should be driven by actual utility, not financial engineering, and pointed to Strategy's preferred stock STRC trading at a discount of about 25% to its $100 par value as evidence of the strategy's problems. STRC is issued with an annual dividend of 11.5% cumulative preferred stock to further fund Strategy's Bitcoin purchases. (The Block)