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As one year gives way to the next, it is worth pausing to take stock of where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going. Many of us at Unchained have lived through multiple bitcoin cycles and know each year carries its own character. Some are defined by speculation, others by despair, a few by hard-won clarity. 2025 will be remembered as a year when bitcoin wealth stopped being theoretical and became undeniably real.
Headlines will argue about how the year should be judged, but one fact deserves more weight than most. Bitcoin spent seven months above $100,000. That threshold felt long overdue, and still, when it arrived, it carried a gravity that surprised even seasoned holders. Whether you first bought at $200, $2,000, or $20,000, it was a powerful moment, and like every meaningful milestone before, it forced questions to the surface that could no longer be deferred.
What continues to stand out to me is how those questions evolve as each cycle rises and falls. The market may be cyclical, but the thinking matures up and to the right. New participants arrive with many of the same uncertainties we once had, yet over time the questions have become more thoughtful, more human, and more enduring. That is a sign of an industry growing up.
In 2025, our client conversations shifted in meaningful ways. We heard less about short-term price action and more about long-term responsibility. Questions like: How do I plan for retirement without giving up my keys? How do I access liquidity without selling what I believe in? How do I pass this on to my children in a way that reflects care, not just value?
Looking back, it is clear that these questions did more than shape our thinking. They shaped our work. They became design constraints, priorities, and tests we returned to again and again. Not as problems to be solved once and set aside, but as responsibilities that deepen as bitcoin itself matures. What we built in 2025 reflects our best answers so far, and it sets the foundation for the work still ahead.
The most consequential step we took in 2025 was the launch of Gannett Trust Company. For years, bitcoiners watched traditional finance offer mature estate planning and trust structures while we relied on hardware wallets, informal instructions, and good intentions. Gannett changes that. It brings institutional trust and fiduciary infrastructure, the kind that has protected generational wealth for centuries, to people who choose to hold bitcoin directly through personal, family, and business trusts. It also gives bitcoin-focused individuals a more sophisticated way to integrate bitcoin alongside the rest of their assets, so long-term planning does not become a choice between bitcoin and everything else.
We opened our doors in Q3 and immediately began serving clients who had been waiting for exactly this: the ability to structure complex estates, designate beneficiaries with legal clarity, and protect family wealth across generations without surrendering the sovereignty that makes bitcoin worth holding in the first place.
On the Unchained custody side, our Vaults evolved to better reflect how people actually think about their bitcoin. Transfer-on-death instructions mean families do not need to navigate probate courts and uncertainty, only clear plans and their keys. Flexible quorums allow sophisticated holders to move beyond a standard 2-of-3 setup into arrangements like 3-of-5 and beyond, for those who want additional resilience through distributed control. Our donor-advised funds proved that meaningful philanthropy does not require giving up bitcoin’s long-term upside.
We also launched our Android app, extending the full Unchained account experience to the majority of smartphone users worldwide and making it easier to manage custody from the device you already use every day. In November, we completed our annual SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits, reinforcing the control environment behind the security, availability, and confidentiality our clients expect.
Our lending desk crossed $1 billion in originations. While this was a meaningful personal milestone for Dhruv and me, what matters more is what that number represents. It is proof that security and liquidity do not have to be mutually exclusive, and that holding bitcoin and accessing its value does not require compromise.
Bitcoin-backed lending always involves a trade-off: you access liquidity without selling, and in return, you place your collateral under a lender’s control for the life of the loan. Those circumstances mean design choices really matter. We have doubled down on a simple principle that borrowers can verify for themselves: we do not rehypothecate bitcoin collateral. Collateral for an Unchained loan stays on the bitcoin blockchain in a 2-of-3 multisig address, with one key held by the borrower, one by Unchained, and one by our professional key agent. That structure keeps risks legible, keeps counterparties to a minimum, and gives borrowers the ongoing ability to audit where their bitcoin is and confirm it has not been re-pledged.
As bitcoin-backed lending becomes more crowded, the pressure to cut corners and optimize will rise. That is predictable. Our response is also predictable. We will not rehypothecate collateral under any structure or through any third party arrangement. Our approach keeps risks legible and collateral auditable, and we will not dilute it for growth.
2025 was bitcoin’s coming-out party in Washington and we made sure the conversations happening in those rooms were grounded in reality. Our partnership with the Bitcoin Policy Institute produced events and briefings throughout the year, giving lawmakers access to expertise rooted in lived experience, not abstractions.
We also welcomed back two of bitcoin’s most important thinkers. Tuur Demeester delivered an updated report that built on years of prescient analysis. Parker Lewis returned to Old Parkland for a second round of discussion, continuing the intellectual work that helps serious people understand what bitcoin represents and why it matters. In addition, we were proud to collaborate with Preston Pysh, Mark Moss, the team at Bitcoin Park, TFTC, and many others who helped move the conversation forward in 2025. We did this because the ideas matter, and because they will keep shaping how people understand money and property as bitcoin moves further into the mainstream.
Late in the year, we launched a new content series called The Last Free Americans, inspired by my keynote at Bitcoin Alaska. It revisits the principles behind the U.S. Constitution and the conception of property rights that bitcoin holders inherit when they choose self-custody. Through conversations with guests like Tim Hite, Zack Shapiro, and Anna Chekhovich, we explored the legal and cultural foundations that make those rights meaningful.
We also carried these ideas into public conversation. During 2025, I hosted panels and held discussions with Senator Cynthia Lummis and Representative Warren Davidson, connecting the practical realities of bitcoin ownership with the policymakers shaping the environment it will operate in.
Our country’s Founders saw how property rights were the keystone through which a capitalist democracy could flourish, and designed a system meant to protect property from seizure and preserve those rights across generations. Bitcoin is the first modern form of property that truly behaves this way. But those rights only matter if they can be exercised in real life. If you cannot plan for retirement, access liquidity, or ensure your children inherit what you have built, sovereignty remains incomplete. Everything we do exists to close that gap.
Bitcoin will continue to offer sound money and real property rights. Whatever the price does in any given quarter, those fundamentals remain. As bitcoin wealth becomes more durable, the obligations around it become more serious, and the solutions must keep pace.
In 2026, we are deepening relationships with existing clients while preparing for the next wave of demand. Families thinking seriously about inheritance, retirement, and long-term security. Business owners managing treasury operations. Anyone who wants access to capital without selling their bitcoin. We are here to help real people hold real bitcoin for their real lives. Bitcoin cannot exist in a vacuum. It has to work alongside everything else you are responsible for, without compromising on custody, security, or principles.
The work continues with greater precision. More capable estate and trust tools. Better integration between custody, lending, and advisory services. Partnerships that expand what we can deliver without compromising what we will not. 2025 clarified the questions and strengthened our platform for answering them. 2026 is about widening the set of answers, and meeting the next stage of maturity with the seriousness that bitcoin demands and its holders deserve.
Here’s to 2026. Our best work is still in front of us.
