Episode Details

Brandon sits down with Jakob Schillinger, founder and CEO of Hermetica, on the day they raise the hBTC cap from 50 to 75 BTC — and unpack how Michael Saylor's STRC quietly became a yield engine for Bitcoin-backed dollars.

In this episode of Good For Bitcoin, Brandon and Jakob discuss:

• Jakob's origin: from running an eyeglasses business in sub-Saharan Africa to building on Bitcoin in 2016 — and why most of the world doesn't have reliable money or property rights to it.
• USDh, plainly: a synthetic dollar backed by spot Bitcoin paired with a 1x futures short. ~10% historical yield, sourced from funding rates on Bybit, OKX, Bitget, and Binance via Copper and Sefu custody.
• The new integration: Strategy's STRC preferred equity now flows into USDh as a second yield source alongside the basis trade.
• Saylor's "financial distillation" framing: 50-vol Bitcoin → 2-vol STRC → 0-vol stablecoin — productized as USDh.
• hBTC, the Bitcoin carry trade: post BTC as collateral on Zest, borrow stables at ~3-5%, deploy into USDh at 8-10%, harvest the delta, swap back into Bitcoin. ~3% net yield in pure BTC terms, on-chain verifiable.
• Why a long-only Bitcoiner might pick hBTC over a stablecoin yield: cold storage stays cold storage; the unit of account never leaves Bitcoin.
• The property analogy: Saylor's optionality to sell some BTC isn't a thesis change — it's the same logic as selling a 10x'd house to buy more property. Strategy stays a net buyer.
• Saylor cosigned hBTC on stage at Bitcoin Vegas — unplanned. "X doing its magic," per Jakob.
• 📈 The news: Hermetica just raised the hBTC cap from 50 → 75 BTC. The last cap filled in under 24 hours. Borrow-side capacity is the only constraint on opening it wider.

Guest:

• Jakob Schillinger — Founder & CEO, Hermetica — @jakob_btc
• Hermetica — @HermeticaFi — hermetica.fi

Host:

• Brandon Marshall — @marshallmixing

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