Today we’ll be taking a tour through the Ukrainian army. Luckily for our health, a virtual one, relying on reports from Ukraine’s brave warriors for European Civilization. First, testimony from a man held in the dungeons of the Vinnytsia manpower distribution center. Commanders drill hidden phones to the wall, mobilized men cough up blood amidst the damp and mold, showers are only allowed twice a week at best, the healthy get sick, and escapees are beaten to a bloody pulp:

They bring in everyone here without distinction — chronic alcoholics who can’t stop shaking, drug addicts with burnt veins, skinny and toothless people. They even bring in homeless men in terrible condition — covered in sores, eczema, and all kinds of chronic illnesses. Everyone’s psychological state is horrible

Meanwhile, even nationalist militarists have been complaining about the mobilization of one of the country’s premier medical engineers, responsible for producing equipment that saves lives at the frontlines:

I asked Pavlo: “But you have eyesight problems!” (he wears glasses). “They don’t give a shit, they said I’m fit to serve…” — he replied.

Next, the future. Why complacency in the western media about the ‘100 year Russian offensive’

covers an ‘operational clusterfuck’ with a ‘strategic sedative.’

Meanwhile, how all this translates into the frontline. First, the situation in the south. Amidst Russian advances, the commander of a battalion from the 142nd brigade sent to save the situation is an

incompetent rogue and, according to some reports, arrives at the command post EXCLUSIVELY while intoxicated.

we should bring back calling people “rogues”, it’s a really cool insult

Besides his drunkenness, the commander’s proclivity towards lies has already led to ‘frightening… considerable losses’. This is apparently all in due course for the 142nd brigade, whose only purpose is to supply expendable infantry for other worn-out units:

It’s worth adding that these commanders had previously effectively annihilated the brigade on the Pokrovsk axis. In some companies fewer than ten people remained.

Meanwhile, recent proclamations by high command that the corps reform has been completed are ridiculed by military bloggers. In fact, the old practice of ruthlessly burning through the infantry of units ‘relocated’ from elsewhere continues. Our correspondents explain how this practice has meaninglessly expended lives on the Pavlohrad axis, where command has:

decided to fight an old problem with old methods that, as it turned out, only make the problems grow exponentially.

Finally, a more theoretical post I translated today begins with the premise that:

As of 2025, the Ukrainian military is a bizarre mutant in which the most talented and the most inept people coexist side by side. The brigades, battalions, staffs, tables, and positions are identical — but some cosplay the U.S. Army during the “Desert Storm,” while others resemble Iraqis.

Besides explaining the heterogenous tendencies existing in the army today, the text also explores the past. It argues that the only high-quality sections of the Ukrainian army destroyed themselves in the steppes of Kherson in 2023. That is, even before the failed counteroffensive of that year, which was simply ‘the nail in the coffin’. Since then, the army has become a Gogolesque phantom:

Our “classical” army has become an army on paper — an army of stillborn brigades, untrained personnel, and incompetent staffs. In this army people worry more about overpayments of additional pay and nonwritten-off equipment than about losing personnel. On paper you have a combat-ready battalion — respectable (not) members (fuck) of the commission signed off — but in reality there are 300 mobilized men: 150 of whom are fucked in the head, an incompetent commander, dreadful training, no commanders at most levels or NCOs, and a lack of supplies needed for modern war. On paper you have 100 trained soldiers, but in reality they literally know nothing, and every brigade asks that people be sent to complete basic combat training immediately within the units.

The future

The Economist put out an article on October 17, triumphantly proclaiming that Russia would have to keep fighting for 103 years to take all of Ukraine.

real WW2 nazi propaganda hours

also reminds me of those alt-history videogames/settings which are like “World War 1 has been going for a hundred years!” and it’s like, going on with what manpower, are they fucking breeding poilus and tommies in cloning vats? (this would at least be an actually interesting concept for a sci-fi dystopia setting, where a brutal WW1-style attritional war can only go on by virtue of the parties involved literally mass-manufacturing soldiers - the anime Ergo Proxy actually had an episode like this, where a post-apocalyptic arcology was fighting off a robot invasion and only surviving by just breeding more soldiers, but it was just the one episode)

But, Ukrainian ‘Officer’ did not feel reassured, writing the following the same day:

Shall we fight for another 100 years? Can somebody tell these ‘experts’ that it doesn’t work like that. I get really pissed off when those analysts try to calculate the time it would take Russia to capture certain territories based on what happened once before. First of all — to what end? What use is that information? Probably to soothe someone and cover an ‘operational clusterfuck’ with a ‘strategic sedative.’ Like: our stomach hurts, but we’re still a long way from needing an appendix removed, so we can keep eating whatever we want. Unfortunately, the snowball effect doesn’t occur to any of these authors. Second, war is not subject to any formulas, theorems, or axioms. Yet for some reason people still bluntly compute timelines for enemy territorial gains based on past events, while the factors that influence all this are not constants but variable inputs. Has the war of 2024 changed compared to 2025? — Obviously yes. If one side quickly adapts to new rules of warfare, pulls a trump card, or simply exploits the opponent’s problems — all your mathematical calculations collapse completely.

On October 18, Officer wrote about how the dangerous effects of winter. Since Ukrainian sources constantly complain of Russian drone superiority, he seems to be implying that the Russians are the ‘hunters’ with the advantage:

We’re entering a rather interesting phase of combat in the modern drone war: in this autumn–winter period, when kill-zones have already formed on both sides of the line of contact in most sectors, logistics will become maximally complicated because the greenery is almost gone, leaves have completely fallen — the terrain’s camouflage value is minimal, and the number of revealing factors (snow, etc.) will increase. The conditions for infantry being in the field and for their approaches to positions will become much harder; accordingly, whoever is hunting will have the advantage, and whoever is hiding will be in a less favorable position. The headaches for infantry will grow, because mechanization and lots of equipment are all well and good, but it is the infantry that actually forms the frontline battle zones—and we haven’t moved away from that.

Engineers to the infantry

On October 19, a telegram run by a veteran of the ultra-nationalist paramilitary ‘Shakhtarsk-Tornado’ (closed down years ago for extreme violence against civilians) complained that specialists were being mobilized:

️I’m asking for maximum reposts! And please read carefully what kind of *** is going on. Ternopil’s military enlistment officers have detained a man whose company is the only one in Ukraine that manufactures surgical instruments, without which not a single military hospital can operate — as well as civilian hospitals, including Ohmatdyt. They’ve already assigned him to a brigade, and the military medical commission was “passed” in a matter of minutes. I asked Pavlo: “But you have eyesight problems!” (he wears glasses). “They don’t give a shit, they said I’m fit to serve…” — he replied. He’d asked me many times to help him get enlisted, but I understood that his work was far too important. And not as a joke — quite seriously, I told him: “There are so many guys here who are crippled, and without your work it’s impossible. So keep doing what you do.”

…

Remember the story of another man from Ternopil — Bohdan Pokitko. The situation is almost identical. But Pavlo’s work is real help that saves lives — both military and civilian. I know many people who’ve been “taken.” But I’ve never written about anyone — until now. I can’t stay silent. … You might ask — what about an exemption from mobilization for such people? Well, apparently, you have to pay a lot for that. But a man who’s taken out loans and donates almost his entire salary to the Armed Forces of Ukraine can’t afford that! That’s how we damn live!

The Aidar Batallion’s Stanislav Buniatov also commented on the incident:

The military medical commission, as usual, was completed in just a few minutes. People like him, as always, have no exemption from mobilization — unlike McDonald’s employees, who do.

For my whole career in finance, I have distrusted the obvious. And yet, for many years there was one number I assumed was an actuarial fact: the U.S. poverty line. Yes, I saw Americans feeling poorer every year, despite economic growth and low unemployment. But ultimately, I trusted the official statistics. Until I saw a simple statement buried in a research paper. And I realized that number—created more than 60 years ago, with good intentions—was a lie. The statement was this: “The U.S. poverty line is calculated as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for inflation.” When I read it I felt sick. And when you understand that number, you will understand the rage of Americans who have been told that their lives have been getting better when they are barely able to stay afloat.

In 1963, Mollie Orshansky, an economist at the Social Security Administration, observed that families spent roughly one-third of their income on groceries. Since pricing data was hard to come by for many items (e.g., housing), if you could calculate a minimum adequate food budget at the grocery store, you could multiply by three and establish a poverty line. Orshansky presented her findings in 1965. She was drawing a floor, a line below which families were clearly in crisis. For that time, that floor made sense. Housing was relatively cheap. A family could rent a decent apartment or buy a home on a single income. Healthcare was provided by employers and cost relatively little (Blue Cross coverage cost in the range of $10 per month). Childcare didn’t really exist as a market—mothers stayed home, family helped, or neighbors (who likely had someone home) watched each others’ kids. Cars were affordable, if prone to breakdowns. College tuition could be covered with a summer job. Orshansky’s food-times-three formula was crude, but as a crisis threshold—a measure of “too little”—it roughly corresponded to reality. But everything changed between 1963 and 2024. Housing costs exploded. Healthcare became the largest household expense for many families. Employer coverage shrank while deductibles grew. Childcare became a market, and that market became ruinously expensive. College went from affordable to crippling.

The labor model shifted. A second income became mandatory to maintain the standard of living that one income formerly provided. But a second income meant childcare became mandatory, which meant, for many, two cars became mandatory. The composition of household spending transformed completely. In 2024, food-at-home is no longer 33 percent of household spending. For most families, it’s 5 to 7 percent. Housing now consumes 35 to 45 percent. Healthcare takes 15 to 25 percent. Childcare, for families with young children, can eat 20 to 40 percent. If you keep Orshansky’s logic—if you maintain her principle that poverty could be defined by the inverse of food’s budget share—but update the food share to reflect today’s reality, the multiplier is no longer three. It becomes 16. Which means if you measured income inadequacy today the way Orshansky measured it in 1963, the threshold for a family of four—the official poverty line in 2024—wouldn’t be $31,200. If the crisis threshold—the floor below which families cannot function—is honestly updated to current spending patterns, it lands at close to $140,000.

Consider this: The median household income is roughly $80,000. We have been told, implicitly, that a family earning $80,000 is doing fine—safely above poverty, solidly middle class, perhaps comfortable. But if Orshansky’s crisis threshold were calculated today using her own methodology, that $80,000 family would be living in deep poverty. To understand why, you need to look at the real costs of sustaining a family today. I wanted to see what would happen if I ignored the official stats and simply calculated the cost of existing. I built a basic needs budget for a family of four (two earners, two kids). No vacations, no Netflix, no luxury. Just the “participation tickets” required to hold a job and raise kids in 2024. Using conservative data for a family in New Jersey:

• Childcare: $32,773
• Housing: $23,267
• Food: $14,717
• Transportation: $14,828
• Healthcare: $10,567
• Other essentials: $21,857
• Required net income: $118,009

Add federal, state, and FICA taxes of roughly $18,500, and you arrive at a required gross income of $136,500. This is Orshansky’s “too little” threshold, updated honestly. This is the floor. The single largest line item isn’t housing. It’s childcare: $32,773. This is the trap. To reach the median household income of $80,000, most families require two earners. But the moment you add the second earner to chase that income, you trigger the childcare expense. If one parent stays home, the income drops to $40,000 or $50,000—well below what’s needed to survive. If both parents work to hit $100,000, they hand over $32,000 to a daycare center. Then take housing. Critics will immediately argue that I’m cherry-picking expensive cities. They will say $136,500 is a number for San Francisco or Manhattan, not “Real America.” So let’s look at “Real America.”

The model above allocates $23,267 per year for housing. That breaks down to $1,938 per month. This is the number that serious economists use to tell you that you’re doing fine. I analyzed a modest “starter home,” which turned out to be in Caldwell, New Jersey—the kind of place a Teamster could afford in 1955. I went to Zillow to see what it costs to live in that same town if you don’t have a down payment and are forced to rent. There are exactly seven 2-bedroom+ units available in the entire town. The cheapest one rents for $2,715 per month. So when I say the real poverty line is $140,000, I’m being conservative. I’m using optimistic, national-average housing assumptions. If we plug in the actual cost of living in the zip codes where the jobs are—where rent is $2,700, not $1,900—the threshold pushes past $160,000. The housing market isn’t just expensive; it’s broken. Seven units available in a town of thousands? That isn’t a market. That’s a shortage masquerading as an auction.

Then there is everything else you need to function in society, the cost of the “participation ticket.” Back in 1955, that included a $5 phone line. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $58. Except that in reality, to function today—to factor authenticate your bank account, to answer work emails, to check your child’s school portal (which is now digital-only)—you need a smartphone plan and home broadband. That’s not $58. It’s $200 or more. Economists will look at my $140,000 figure and scream about “hedonic adjustments.” And yes, cars today have airbags, homes have air conditioning, and phones are supercomputers. The quality of many goods has gotten markedly better. But we are not calculating the price of luxury. We are calculating the price of participation. Now run this kind of participation audit across the economy. In 1955, Blue Cross family coverage was roughly $10 per month ($115 in today’s dollars). Today, the average family premium is over $1,600 per month. That’s 14x inflation. In 1955, the Social Security tax was 2 percent on the first $4,200 of income. The maximum annual contribution was $84. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $960 a year. Today, a family earning the median $80,000 pays over $6,100. That’s 6x inflation. And childcare? In 1955, this cost was zero because the economy supported a single-earner model. Today, it’s $32,000. That’s an infinite increase in the cost of participation. The only thing that actually tracked official Consumer Price Index was… food. Everything else—the inescapable fees required to hold a job, stay healthy, and raise children—inflated at multiples of the official rate when considered on a participation basis. Yes, these goods and services are better. I would not trade my 65″ 4K TV mounted flat on the wall for the 25″ TV that dominated a living room, but I also don’t have the choice to pay less money and buy the old model.

“We’re reshaping how we build and field the Fleet, working with industry to deliver warfighting advantage, beginning with a strategic shift away from the Constellation-class frigate program,” Navy Secretary John C. Phelan said in a post on X. Phelan said that four ships under contract but yet to be built by Fincantieri would now be cancelled. “The navy and our industry partners have reached a comprehensive framework that terminates for the Navy’s convenience the last four ships of the class which have not begun construction,” he said. “We greatly value the shipbuilders of Michigan and Wisconsin. While work continues on the first two ships those ships remain under review as we work through this strategic shift. Keeping this critical workforce employed and the yard viable for future navy shipbuilding is of foremost concern,” he added.

keeping the critical workforce employed by cancelling all their work

Italian shipyard Fincantieri won the contract to build the frigates in 2020 at its Marinette Marine yard in Wisconsin, with the US Navy eyeing an eventual order of 20 ships. The baseline design was Fincantieri’s FREMM frigate, which is already in service with the French and Italian navies among others. The U.S. Navy originally reported “basic and functional designs” were 88% complete. But a March report by the United States Government Accountability Office claimed the U.S. Navy proceeded to order numerous design changes, meaning that five years on, the program was only 70% complete and three years late. “As a result of these changes, in part, the frigate now bears little resemblance to the parent design that the Navy touted as a built-in, risk reduction measure for the program in 2020,” the report stated. “Now, in 2025, the ongoing redesign has driven weight growth at levels that exceed available tolerances. Already the Navy is considering a reduction in the frigate’s speed requirement as one potential way, among others, to resolve this weight growth,” the report added. In his statement on Tuesday, Phelan said, “The facts are clear. It is time to deliver the ship our warfighters need at a pace that matches the threat environment, not the comfort level of the bureaucracy.”

In a statement, Fincantieri said it expected to receive new orders for “amphibious, icebreaking and other special mission” ships to compensate for lost business. “On top of the aforementioned award of future orders, in order to cover the above, the agreement indemnifies Fincantieri Marine Group, on existing economic commitments and industrial impacts through measures provided by the U.S. Navy, as a result of the contractual decision made for its own convenience,” the firm said. Fincantieri said it has invested more than $800 million in its four U.S. shipyards: Marinette, Green Bay, Sturgeon Bay, and Jacksonville, and now employs 3,750 staff in the United States. George Moutafis, CEO of Fincantieri Marine Group, said, “Our investments in the U.S. shipyards are a testament to our long-term vision: to be a cornerstone of the U.S. maritime industrial base and a driving force to sustain the momentum of the national shipbuilding renaissance, the American shipbuilding renaissance.” Sources in Italy told Defense News the work on the six frigates had been worth $6 billion. Continuing work on the first two, plus indemnities agreed with the U.S. government, would be worth $3 billion, while new orders planned would be worth $2 billion.

Phelan’s decision to truncate the Constellation program was praised by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). “I commend (the Navy secretary) for canceling the troubled Constellation-class frigate program — a tough but vital call. Biden-era design changes derailed the contractor, but Fincantieri Marinette Marine will remain key to our shipbuilding future. This is a clear signal that Navy program management is being fixed and accountability restored. Stronger Navy ahead!” In his statement, Phelan added, “The Navy needs ships and looks forward to building them in every shipyard that can. A key factor in this decision is the need to grow the fleet faster to meet tomorrow’s threats. This framework puts the Navy on a path to more rapidly construct new classes of ships and deliver the capability our warfighters need in greater numbers on a more urgent timeline.”

The United States is formulating plans to feed a massive military presence in the Caribbean almost to the end of President Donald Trump’s term in office — suggesting the recent influx of American troops to the region won’t end anytime soon. As gossip, official leaks, and RUMINT (a portmanteau of rumor and intelligence) about a coming war with Venezuela reign in Washington, Defense Department contracting documents reviewed by The Intercept offer one of the most concrete indications of the Pentagon’s plans for operations in the Caribbean Sea over the next three years. The contracting documents earmark food supplies for almost every branch of the U.S. military, including the Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. They detail an effort by the Defense Logistics Agency, or DLA, to source “Fresh Bread & Bakery products to Department of Defense (‘DoD’, or ‘Troop’) customers in the Puerto Rico Zone.” One spreadsheet outlining supplies for “Puerto Rico Troops” notes tens of thousands of pounds of baked goods are scheduled for delivery from November 15 of this year to November 11, 2028. Foodstuff set to feed the troops include individually wrapped honey buns, vanilla cupcakes, sweet rolls, hamburger rolls, and flour tortillas.

The Pentagon has built up a force of 15,000 troops in the Caribbean since the summer — the largest naval flotilla in the Caribbean since the Cold War. That contingent now includes 5,000 sailors aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most powerful aircraft carrier, which has more than 75 attack, surveillance, and support aircraft. The surge of combat power comes as the U.S. has conducted more than 20 strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing more than 80 civilians. As part of that effort, the Trump administration has secretly declared that it is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with 24 cartels, gangs, and armed groups including Cártel de los Soles, which the U.S. claims is “headed by Nicolas Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals,” despite little evidence that such a group exists. Experts and insiders see this as part of a plan for regime change in Venezuela that stretches back to Trump’s first term. Maduro, the president of Venezuela, denies that he heads a cartel.

Mark Cancian, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Intercept that the documents suggest the outsized American military presence in the Caribbean could continue for years. “The procurement’s length of time and the level of effort seemed to point to these operations continuing at the current level for several years,” said Cancian, who previously worked on defense procurement at the Office of Management and Budget. “That’s significant because it means that the Navy will maintain a large presence in the Caribbean that is far larger than what it has been in recent years. It further implies that the Navy will be involved in these counter-drug operations.” The Pentagon has tried to keep the details of its military buildup in the region under wraps, failing to answer questions from The Intercept about troop levels, the bulking up of bases, and warships being surged into the Caribbean. “For operational security reasons, we do not release itemized operational details of asset, unit, and troop movements and locations,” said a spokesperson for Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the region. “Information released is published via official communication web sites and social media accounts, or shared with reporters via news releases and updates.”

…

Another former defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his current job with a military contractor, said that the documents raise significant questions that the Defense Department would rather not address. “People will ask whether this means escalation from the strikes on smugglers into a Venezuelan campaign, whatever that eventually looks like,” said the former official who has significant experience in military logistics, procurement, and supply chains.

…

Troops from the 22nd MEU are currently conducting training exercises in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean island nation only miles from Venezuela. Maduro called the drills “irresponsible” and said the neighboring country was “allowing their waters and land to be used to gravely threaten the peace of the Caribbean.” Members of the unit have also conducted reconnaissance and surveillance training at Camp Santiago in Puerto Rico. For months, the 22nd MEU has failed to respond to The Intercept’s questions about its operations in the region. The unit also did not respond to recent repeated requests for comment about its use of Defense Activity Address Code M20179 and the potential for food deliveries into late 2028 for troops in and around Puerto Rico. The DLA documents are also no anomaly. Other recent contracting documents detail “food catering services for 22d MEU personnel located at José Aponte de la Torre Airport, Puerto Rico, from 15 September to 31 December 2025.” The Defense Logistics Agency is also looking into a separate “potential six-month contract for full-service food support to visiting U.S. Navy Ships” in Puerto Rico. That deal would include foods from beef steak, chicken cutlets, and lasagna to chocolate pudding, brownie mix, and chocolate chip cookie dough, not to mention breakfast burritos with bacon, egg, and cheese. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the campaign of attacks in the Caribbean and the Pacific is called Operation Southern Spear. Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and Southern Command, “this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” he wrote on X. Southern Spear kicked off earlier this year as part of the Navy’s next-generation effort to use small robot interceptor boats and vertical take-off and landing drones to conduct counternarcotics operations.

Trump recently teased the possibility of holding talks with Maduro; Maduro said he is open to face-to-face talks with Trump. The Pentagon has reportedly presented Trump with various options for attacking Venezuela, according to two government officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose information from classified briefings. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson did not reply to a request for comment. Trump has also publicly spoken of moving the sea attacks to land, confirmed that he secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, threatened future attacks on Venezuelan territory, and said he has not ruled out an invasion of Venezuela by U.S. troops. Asked if the U.S. was going to war against Venezuela, Trump nonetheless replied: “I doubt it. I don’t think so.” But when asked if Maduro’s days as president were numbered, Trump replied: “I would say yeah. I think so.” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers did not reply to questions from The Intercept about plans to attack Venezuela, the options for strikes presented to Trump, and the contracting documents which indicate the U.S. will have a major troop presence in the Caribbean into late 2028. “These documents suggest that the Trump administration plans to maintain a significantly increased military presence in the Caribbean through the remainder of President Trump’s term in office. With ongoing military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the potential for escalation between the U.S. and Venezuela in particular is high, even if the administration isn’t seeking it,” Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for an end to wasteful spending, told The Intercept.

Crypto-hoarding companies are ditching their holdings in a bid to prop up their sinking share prices, as the craze for “digital asset treasury” businesses unravels in the face of a $1tn cryptocurrency rout.

Shares in Michael Saylor-led Strategy, the world’s biggest corporate bitcoin holder, have tumbled 50 per cent over the past three months, dragging down scores of copycat companies.

About $77bn has been wiped from the stock market value of these companies, which raise debt and equity to fund purchases of crypto, since their peak of $176bn in July, according to industry data publication The Block.

With Saylor’s company now worth less than the bitcoin it holds, investors worry that a business model that relied on a virtuous circle of rising crypto prices and massive share and debt issuance is now unravelling.

“There’s going to be a fire sale at these companies; it’s going to get worse,” said Adam Morgan McCarthy, senior research analyst at crypto data firm Kaiko. “It’s a vicious cycle. As soon as the prices start tanking, it’s a race to the bottom.” Line chart of $ showing Strategy’s falling share price

Saylor’s software business inspired a raft of copycats in industries including film production, vaping and electric vehicles, after its pivot to a “bitcoin treasury” strategy drove a huge increase in its share price. Purchases by such companies have been a big driver of bitcoin hitting a record high last month.

But the craze has soured as cryptocurrencies bore the brunt of a sell-off in speculative assets this autumn, in a sharp reversal for a sector that had been buoyed by President Donald Trump’s pledge last year to turn the US into a “bitcoin superpower”.

Shares in Japan’s biggest bitcoin holder Metaplanet have plunged 80 per cent since their June peak. The company on Tuesday raised a $130mn loan backed by its bitcoin, which it said would be used for purposes including buying back stock. The Smarter Web Company, the UK’s biggest bitcoin buyer, has experienced a 44 per cent stock price drop this year. It is valued at £132mn while the bitcoin it holds is worth about $232mn.

“It was inevitable,” said Jake Ostrovskis, head of OTC trading at Wintermute, referring to the sell-off in digital asset treasury stocks. “It got to the point where there’s too many of them.”

Several companies have begun selling their crypto stockpiles in an effort to fund share buybacks and shore up their stock prices, in effect putting the crypto treasury model into reverse.

North Carolina-based ether holder FG Nexus sold about $41.5mn of its tokens recently to fund its share buyback programme. Its market cap is $104mn while the crypto it holds is worth $116mn. Florida-based life sciences company turned ether buyer ETHZilla recently sold about $40mn worth of its tokens, also to fund its share buyback programme.

Sequans Communications, a French semiconductor company, sold about $100mn of its bitcoin this month in order to service its debt, in a sign of how some companies that borrowed to fund crypto purchases are now struggling. Sequans’ market capitalisation is $87mn while the bitcoin it holds is worth $198mn.

Georges Karam, chief executive of Sequans, said the sale was a “tactical decision aimed at unlocking shareholder value given current market conditions”.

While bitcoin and ether sellers can find buyers, companies with more niche tokens will find it more difficult to raise money from their holdings, according to Morgan McCarthy. “When you’ve got a medical device company buying some long-tail asset in crypto, a niche in a niche market, it is not going to end well,” he said, adding that 95 per cent of digital asset treasuries “will go to zero”.

Strategy, meanwhile, has doubled down and bought even more bitcoin as the price of the token has fallen to $87,000, from $115,000 a month ago. The firm also faces the looming possibility of being cut from some major equity indices, which could heap even more selling pressure on the stock.

But Saylor has brushed off any concerns. “Volatility is Satoshi’s gift to the faithful,” he said this week, referring to the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin.