AUSTIN, Texas, July 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Onramp, the bitcoin-centric financial services platform built on Multi-Institution Custody, today released Back to Basics, a summer 2026 research report making the case for owning bitcoin directly at one of the most asymmetric moments in the asset’s history. Bitcoin currently trades roughly ~50% below its late-2025 high, the shallowest drawdown on record by bitcoin’s own historical standard, while the S&P 500 sits within ~1% of its all-time high, the Nasdaq within ~4%, and gold within ~24% of its peak. Alongside the report, Onramp is offering 50% off trading fees and no-cost recurring buys for new clients. The report and offers are available here.
The timing reflects a deliberate view on where the current cycle stands. Prior drawdowns reached 93% in 2011, 85% from 2013 to 2015, 83% in 2017 to 2018, and 77% from 2021 to 2022. Each ended in a new all-time high. The current cycle’s ~50% decline is the shallowest in bitcoin’s history, occurring as the Fear & Greed Index sits at 22, in extreme-fear territory, at the time of writing. The report arrives at the moment sentiment is at its worst and the historical data makes the clearest case for accumulation.
Back to Basics is organized in three sections. The first covers ten foundational ideas behind owning bitcoin: why fiat currency is designed to lose value, how a capped supply of 21 million makes bitcoin’s scarcity verifiable rather than promised, and why direct ownership differs meaningfully from holding an instrument that tracks the price. The second examines the full range of bitcoin exposure, from ETF shares and exchange balances to structured products and treasury equities, laying out what holders actually own in each case and where the counterparty risk sits. The third presents the data: where the current drawdown sits relative to prior cycles and the pattern of recoveries that have followed comparable declines.
“We find that a meaningful share of people who consider themselves bitcoin owners actually hold a paper claim against it. You get the price exposure, but not the asset itself,” said Michael Tanguma, Founder and CEO of Onramp. “That’s what Back to Basics is designed to address. Whether you’ve never owned real bitcoin or you’ve been sitting in a wrapper for years, this campaign is the on-ramp to the real thing. There’s no substitute for holding it directly.”
The report makes clear that paper exposure, however convenient, reintroduces the counterparty risk bitcoin was designed to eliminate. A balance at an exchange is the obligation of a platform that may have lent the coins elsewhere. A fund share is a claim on a fund that holds a claim with a custodian. A yield-bearing product passes a borrower’s risk to the holder as a return. A share in a bitcoin-holding company embeds the asset inside a business with its own leverage and dilution. With each step away from the underlying asset, the holder gains convenience and accepts an additional party between themselves and their bitcoin.
“The fundamentals have not changed. The price has,” said Brian Cubellis, Chief Strategy Officer at Onramp. “Back to Basics gives investors the data and the framework to recognize this for what it is, one of the most compelling accumulation windows in bitcoin’s history, and to act on it.”
The campaign also marks the launch of recurring buys on Onramp, a new feature available to every client with no fees that lets investors dollar-cost average into bitcoin automatically on a schedule they set. Alongside it, both new and existing clients get 50% off the fees on every bitcoin buy and sell through September 7, plus free access to the Back to Basics report.
For those looking to do more, the first 100 clients to open an Onramp Bitcoin IRA pay no first- -year-fees. Separately, clients can access Multi-Institution Custody, the 2-of-3 model Onramp pioneered, at a reduced rate of $100 per month.
Back to Basics also marks an expansion of Onramp Media, the company’s editorial arm. The same week the report was released, Onramp debuted Signal vs. Noise, a new weekly show in which four hosts each bring their top stories to the table and the strongest survive, a format built to separate what matters in markets from what merely trends. Alongside the show, Onramp is standing up a dedicated editorial news desk covering money, markets, and the forces reshaping both. The premise mirrors the report itself: strip away the noise, return to the fundamentals, and follow the signal.
The full report and all offers are available here.
About Onramp
Onramp is a financial platform for people who think about wealth in decades. Onramp Finance, its latest offering, unifies cash accounts with Onramp-funded rewards up to 5% through a partnership with Bridge, a spending card with up to 1.5% cash back, low-cost bitcoin brokerage in all 50 states, bitcoin IRAs, and direct gold access in a single account. Onramp pioneered Multi-Institution Custody (MIC), a model that eliminates reliance on any single custodian by distributing security across independent institutions including Onramp, BitGo, Coincover, and Tetra. No single institution can access, move, or lose a client’s bitcoin. Bitcoin held in MIC is insured by Lloyd’s of London. Users can learn more at onrampbitcoin.com.
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