People walk by the Microsoft Office building on 41st street and 8th avenue on November 25, 2024 in New York City.

(Craig T. Fruchtman/Getty Images)

Microsoft shareholders slap down a proposal to buy bitcoin, bucking an emerging corporate trend

The tech giant’s shareholders decided against following in the footsteps of MicroStrategy, Tesla, and MARA as bitcoin sits near a record high.

Jack Morse

12/10/24 3:02PM

Microsoft shareholders aren’t jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon.

On Tuesday, the company’s shareholders followed the Microsoft board’s recommendation and voted against a proposal to explore adding bitcoin to the tech giant’s balance sheet. If passed, the measure could’ve brought Microsoft into the company of MicroStrategy, Tesla, and MARA Holdings — all of which have purchased bitcoin.

According to the National Center for Public Policy Research, the self-described conservative think tank that proposed the bitcoin shareholder resolution, MicroStrategy Executive Chair (and bitcoin cheerleader) Michael Saylor was scheduled to present today’s proposal.

“MicroStrategy — which, like Microsoft, is a technology company, but unlike Microsoft holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet — has had its stock outperform Microsoft stock this year by 313% despite doing only a fraction of the business that Microsoft has,” the proposal read in part.

MicroStrategy’s secret ingredient — at least as suggested by the folks at the National Center for Public Policy Research — was its bitcoin buying.

BTC

0.00%

Today

Sage D. Young3/20/26

Altcoin trading activity has lost its mojo

Non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies have seen their trading volume plummet in the past five months. The combined trading volume of ethereum, XRP, solana, dogecoin, SUI, and chainlink has decreased by 60% since crypto’s October 10 liquidation event, according to Thomas Probst, a research analyst at crypto markets data provider Kaiko.

Main Altcoins Trading Volume in USD — The trading volume of ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, SUI, and LINK.

For all altcoins, spot trading volume on Binance has declined between 80% and 85% to $7.7 billion, while altcoin volume on other exchanges has dropped to $18.8 billion, down from a range of $63 billion to $91 billion in October, a Friday report from Decrypt found, citing data from CryptoQuant.

“This trend may be explained by a contraction in market liquidity over the same period,” Probst told Sherwood News. “This phenomenon is also reflected in the average 1% market depth, which stood at approximately $2.6 million before the October 10 crash and is now closer to $1.7 million when aggregated across ETH, XRP, SOL, SUI, and LINK.”

Market depth is used by investors and traders to gauge the scale of liquidity in a market. 1% market depth refers to the amount of liquidity needed to move the market by 1%.

CoinGlass’s Altcoin Season Index, a measure to assess the performance of non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, has been sitting above 50 this week, suggesting that the current market is neither in a bitcoin dominant phase nor an altcoin season.

“Triple witching” day may put further pressure on bitcoin’s price

This is not “a favorable environment for risk assets.”

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy3/20/26

Sage D. Young

3/19/26

Hyperliquid is the “1,000 pound gorilla in the room” leading year-to-date market gains amid conflict in the Middle East

While the crypto industry has shed $564.3 billion in 2026, Hyperliquid’s native token has bucked the downtrend and jumped 54.8% year to date.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

3/19/26

Bitcoin tumbles as oil and gas prices spike and the market’s mood turns risk-off

Bitcoin ETFs reverted to outflows and bitcoin suffered $192 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours.

Sage D. Young3/18/26

Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter.

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows.

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions.

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold