Beyond that, 2025 will surely be remembered for the frenzy and subsequent stunning collapse of hastily launched Bitcoin finance companies trying to emulate the success of Michael Saylor’s strategy. Perhaps no one is more well-known than KindlyMD (NAKA), led by David Bailey, the highly successful CEO of Bitcoin Magazine and the Bitcoin whisperer behind Donald Trump’s presidential campaign victory.
This feature is part of CoinDesk The Most Influential List of 2025.
Subsequently, KindlyMD, a little-known micro-health care company, announced in May that it had reached a merger agreement with Bailey’s Nakamoto Holdings and received more than $700 million in financing to establish a Bitcoin financial company. Shares of Kindly (then known as KIND, but soon changed to NAKA) soared from around $2 to over $30 in a matter of days. That’s the top.
Despite Bailey’s near-constant bullish messaging on X, NAKA’s stock price fell throughout the spring and summer despite rising Bitcoin prices. As the merger was completed in mid-August, things got really ugly. When early investors were able to sell their shares about a month later, they did so. Bailey even encouraged it, one of the strangest moves ever by a public company CEO. “To those shareholders who have come forward seeking a deal, I encourage you to withdraw,” he wrote in a September letter. They did quit.
KindlyMD shares are trading at about $0.45 this week, down about 99% from their peak, and trading at about 25% of where they were before the merger agreement with Bailey’s Nakamoto Holdings.
