Roman Melnikov

JP MORGAN MANIPULATION of MSTR IS WAY BEYOND YOU THINK. Here's how everything was planned. Let’s start with an important name: Jim Chanos. He is one of the most well-known short sellers on Wall Street. He has built his career by shorting companies he thinks are overvalued. ➱ In May 2025, he openly said he is Long Bitcoin and Short MSTR. This helped create the idea that you can support Bitcoin but attack MicroStrategy separately. ➱ In July 2025, JPMorgan increased margin requirements for trading MSTR shares from 50% to 95%. This resulted in lower trading volume for MSTR and even triggered margin calls as investors weren't able to add more funds to meet the new requirement. ➱ In August 2025, JPMorgan released documents for a new structured product linked to BlackRock’s IBIT. So they were already preparing their own Bitcoin related product months before the MSCI issue came into the picture. ➱ On October 10, MSCI released the consultation note. It says that companies holding 50% or more of their assets in Bitcoin or digital assets may be removed from MSCI indexes if their activities resemble a digital-asset treasury. This directly affects companies like MicroStrategy. It’s also important to remember: MSCI = Morgan Stanley Capital International. It was originally created by Morgan Stanley. So the index changes have a link to a major bank now offering its own Bitcoin-related products. ➱ Just four days after the MSCI announcement, Morgan Stanley filed with the SEC for a structured product tied to IBIT. So one arm raises concerns about BTC heavy companies, and another arm releases a product that gives exposure through IBIT instead. ➱ 2 weeks ago, JPMorgan filed for its own IBIT linked structured note. ➱ Then on November 20, JPMorgan did two things on the same day: • Published the documents to sell their IBIT note • Brought back the MSCI issue (which was already 42 days old) and highlighted the index removal risk around MSTR This timing is what raised questions. This is why many traders now believe the pattern looks like this: 1. Raise doubts about BTC-heavy companies like MSTR 2. Create fear around potential index removal 3. Launch new Bitcoin-exposure products 4. Let capital shift from MSTR into IBIT-linked bank products The market has seen this behavior before. In 2017, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon publicly called Bitcoin a fraud. $BTC dropped sharply. Soon after, reports showed JPMorgan clients were buying Bitcoin for their rich clients. Public comments and actual positioning do not always match. So what does all of this mean? • The MSCI announcement created the first wave of concern • The market was already fragile at that time • JPMorgan’s note came at the exact moment when MSTR and BTC were weak • More traders now believe there may be short side pressure • JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are releasing IBIT linked products at the same time • Saylor stepped in to give clarity and stabilize the situation All of this now point to one thing: the flows and the timing around $MSTR are not random. Understanding this behavior is important, because this is how large institutions influence the market long before the retail crowd notices.

For years, the conventional wisdom was to put 100% of your energy into building, and to ignore politics. The problem was that those who put 100% of their energy into fighting, particularly politicians, would then take everything you’d built. Like the video game Civilization. If you put everything into science and commerce, while the next door tribe puts it all into swordsmen and slogans, they’ll waltz over and walk over you. The temptation is then to respond in kind, by putting 100% of your resources into fighting. This does work to ward off the initial assault. But without building you become just like your violent and unproductive neighbors. Everyone becomes a violent, dumb tribesman. And technological progress grinds to a halt. This is the downward spiral that characterizes the darkest ages of history. Indeed, perhaps some day, long in the past, that violent neighboring tribe that’s trying to steal from you once fell into a similar downward spiral thanks to *their* enemies. And lost their productive capacity, and had only tribal raiding to fall back on, resulting in their current state of contagious degradation. Think Planet of the Apes. There is an answer, though. It’s 70% build, 20% write, and 10% fight. Put most energy into building, some energy into writing, and one tenth towards fighting. Think of the 10% like your defense budget. Your technological progress provides the capital and growth to fund defense. Indeed, you may end up with >10X the resources of the vicious neighboring tribes. Because they focus solely on demonizing others rather than building up themselves. And if so, 10% of your resources will match 100% of theirs. Then, even by devoting 100% of their energy to fighting, they won’t be able to steal. Your defense is too strong. So they’ll simply need to build their own stuff. As will other tribes. Now everyone gets wealthier, and has less reason to fight. And this is the upward spiral.

Second PR to Reth from Igra Labs. Critical for true sub-second finality support. BlockDAG reorgs within 1-2 second spans are routine. Correctly mapping these to a deterministic EVM sequence is non-trivial -- without them based rollup breaks under real BlockDAG conditions.