Bond Market Selloff, BTC Institutional Adoption, Digital Treasuries | BMTV Oct. 08, 2026

Grace Remington (0:05)

Good morning and happy Thursday. Welcome into BMTV. I'm Grace Remington with Sean Hagan. Full house on the show today. Here's who we got on the docket. John Koudounis, CEO of Calamos Investments. Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfenix Securities. Hafa Zagury, CEO of Twenty One Capital. Isabel Foxen Duke, the head of the Mara Foundation. And Antoine Poinso, research and development at ChainCode Labs.

Lots of action in the markets this morning, Sean, as we will get to in just a minute. But how are you doing today?

Sean Hagan (0:37)

Tick-tock, next Block. Another day, another show. And just like Bitcoin would keep marching on, let's do it.

Grace Remington (0:42)

All right, let's go. We'll start with the headlines. Russia's largest bank has started testing Bitcoin transactions through Spurbank online, including buying, selling, deposits, and withdrawals. The bank serves more than 110 million active retail clients and plans to expand access across its banking and investment platform starting December 1st. The final launch date and approved assets depend on Russian regulations taking effect.

International Banking Group Standard chartered plans to offer digital asset custody in Singapore for institutional and eligible corporate clients, subject to regulatory requirements. The service would cover selected crypto assets, stable coins and tokenized real world assets. The bank says the expansion responds to growing client demand for secure regulation. Samsung Wallet will add USDC stable coin transfers in the last week of October with a feature available on 82 million eligible Galaxy devices in the United States. Users will be able to send USDC to compatible crypto wallets or send money to qualifying bank accounts in more than 60 countries where recipients receive local currency. Greece is proposing a 10% tax on cryptocurrency capital gains with annual gains of up to 500 euros exempt. The draft bill is open for public consultation and is expected to go before Parliament in November. Across Europe, crypto tax rates vary from 8% to 30% and generally apply to capital gains.

Oil prices jumped about 5% Thursday as a tax on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and a hurricane threat to US production heightened supply concerns. Brent reached over $105 a barrel while US crude climbed to nearly $93. Producers shut in about a quarter of US. Gulf oil output, adding pressure after US crude inventories fell by 3.2 million barrels. The US. Treasury plans to buy back up to $6 billion in face value of long dated government bonds today. The operation targets debt maturing between November 2046 and August 2056, with offers accepted from 1.4 to 2 p.m. Eastern. The $6 billion is the maximum purchase amount with the actual total to be reported after the operation.

And with that, let's check in on the markets this morning.

Bitcoin, feeling the pressure a little bit down about 1.5% today, hanging out around $8,200 to $8,200 to $8,300. Let's go to the Treasuries. They did have or attract strong demand at yesterday's 10-year Treasury Auction. And yet, that 10-year yield continues to rise up a few basis points today above 5.3%. The 30-yield up four basis points at 5.71. And you heard the news on oil in the headline. Brent briefly touched $105 a barrel this morning. WTI has come down a little bit, but still above 90 That's up 4.2% on the day.

Gold also, a little bit of a jump today. It's up 8 tenths of a percentage point to about $41,000 per ounce. What are you looking at, Sean?

Sean Hagan (3:55)

I'm looking at Bitcoin. Bitcoin sticks out to me the most. I think there's been a lot of chatter about this recent retracement.

People still have a little bit of PTSD, I think, from our bear market. But let's not forget, Bitcoin has been acting fundamentally different compared to macro news and things shifting in the broader economy.

A move back a little bit here to cool off does not structurally change anything. We kind of hit some strong resistance around 86.5%, 87K, where there was a lot of asks in the order books. And now we're drifting down a little bit. There's a ton of bids stacked up at 81K. So I really don't expect for us to go any lower than that, at least in the short term.

Grace Remington (4:44)

Yeah, and we'll be breaking down all those macro forces later on in the show. But let's bring in our first guest of the day now, John Koudounis, CEO of Calamos Investments, a firm with over $53 billion in assets under management. Good morning, John.

John Koudounis (4:58)

Good morning.

Grace Remington (5:00)

Thanks for joining us. So something we've been talking about is the stress we're seeing in European sovereign bonds, and in particular, France. So what are you seeing in terms of cause for concern out there, and are there any lessons we might be able to take away from Greece's 2009 debt crisis?