We build walls of code to protect hearts of flesh. But what happens when those walls are built by funds, not believers?
Matt Cole, CEO of Strive, said something routine in an interview last week: his firm will buy and sell Bitcoin flexibly, always acting in the best interest of shareholders. The crypto Twitterverse reacted with a collective gasp. How dare he admit he might sell?
The statement, buried in a dry financial discussion, is a small tremor beneath the bull market’s euphoria. But tremors reveal fault lines. And this one exposes the lie we’ve been telling ourselves: that institutional adoption means eternal HODLing.
I’ve seen this pattern before. In 2017, while auditing ICO whitepapers in Tokyo, I watched projects promise ‘community-first’ tokenomics while their vesting schedules favored insiders. The rhetoric was beautiful. The code was not. Today, we have a new rhetoric: ‘Bitcoin is a strategic reserve asset, institutions will never sell.’ The reality? Fiduciary duty trumps ideology every time.
Let’s break down what Strive’s strategy really means.
The Context: Bull Market Narratives vs. Balance Sheet Reality
We are in a bull market. Prices are rising. Retail FOMO is back. Every day, another influencer declares Bitcoin is ‘digital gold’ and ‘the only asset you need.’ The narrative is self-reinforcing: buy and hold forever. But institutions don’t operate on memes. They operate on risk-adjusted returns.
Strive is not a decentralized collective. It is a registered investment company, likely subject to SEC oversight. Its CEO has a legal duty to maximize shareholder value. That means buying low and selling high—or at least managing drawdowns. The ‘flexible’ strategy is not betrayal; it is basic finance.
But the market has been conditioned to treat any mention of selling as heresy. Why? Because the crypto gospel preaches that faith must be absolute. I call this the ‘HODL theology.’ It is comforting but dangerous. It ignores the human reality: fear, greed, and the need for liquidity.
In my 2022 ‘Crypto Resilience’ community, I saw what happens when the theology fails. After Luna collapsed, investors who had ‘diamond hands’ their entire portfolio faced depression. They had no plan, no exit strategy. Education—real education—teaches not just conviction, but contingency.
The Core: Technical Analysis of an Attitude
Since there is no code to audit here, we audit the narrative. Let’s apply the same rigor we use for smart contracts.
1. The HODL assumption: Most retail and many institutional investors assume that holding Bitcoin forever is the optimal strategy. This is unverified. In fact, macro data shows that strategic selling during euphoria (e.g., late 2021) would have outperformed buy-and-hold. But the community punishes anyone who admits they sold.
2. The liquidity trap: Strive’s flexibility reduces the risk of being forced to sell at a loss if shareholders redeem en masse. This is actually a safety mechanism. Compare it to a DeFi protocol with a liquidity pool that can be drained—the flexible sell strategy is like a circuit breaker.
3. The signaling effect: When a fund says ‘we may sell,’ it signals that the asset is not a sacred cow. This is healthy. Markets need price discovery, and price discovery requires both buyers and sellers. The narrative that selling is betrayal creates artificial scarcity of supply, which inflates bubbles.
4. The ethical angle: Is it more ethical to hold and risk your clients’ capital in a crash, or to take profits and protect them? As someone who has curated ethical narratives, I argue the latter. The blockchain is built on transparency, not blind faith.
Truth is not consensus, it is verification. Strive’s statement is a verification that fiduciary duty is real. We should verify that reality, not reject it.
The Contrarian: Flexibility is the Real Maturity
The market is interpreting Cole’s words as bearish. I think they are bullish for the long-term health of the ecosystem.
Consider: The biggest risk to Bitcoin is not a fund selling; it is a sudden liquidity crisis where everyone tries to sell at once and no one can. By allowing gradual, strategic selling, institutions like Strive reduce the chance of a panic cascade. They are building a more resilient market.
Moreover, this forces the community to decouple from the ‘number go up’ mentality. In my 2024-2026 work with BlockMind Academy, I designed curricula that teach students to think in cycles, not in moonshots. The flexible HODL is a mature investor mentality. It is the opposite of FOMO.
But here is the blind spot: The market’s reaction reveals a deep psychological fragility. We want to believe that someone else will hold forever so our bags stay heavy. We project our own desire for infinite gains onto institutions. This is a collective delusion.
Education dissolves fear; fear creates scarcity. The fear that Strive will sell is a fear that the scarcity narrative will break. But scarcity is real—21 million coins are real. The flexible strategy does not change that. It only changes the timing of transactions.
The Takeaway: Build for Reality, Not for Religion
Over the next six months, I expect more funds to quietly adopt similar flexible strategies. They will not announce it loudly because the community will punish them. But on-chain data will show the truth: flows in and out of custody addresses, periodic sells during rallies.
The future is built by those who audit the present. Audit your own assumptions. Are you holding because it’s a sound asset, or because the gospel told you to?
Code is law, but ethics is the conscience. Strive’s ethics are aligned with its shareholders—and that is a good thing. The crypto industry needs more accountability, not less. If we want mainstream adoption, we must allow mainstream behavior.
I will be watching Strive’s public addresses (if they exist). I will be watching the on-chain volume around their interviews. And I will be teaching my students to do the same.
The ledger remembers what the crowd forgets. The crowd forgot that flexibility is a feature, not a bug.
Now, ask yourself: Is your conviction based on verification or consensus?