MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Bitcoin bulls

MicroStrategy goes on another bitcoin buying spree

MicroStrategy welcomes the new year with more bitcoin, and more companies are following in its path.

1/6/25 12:32PM

It’s off to the races for MicroStrategy, which announced a capital plan on bitcoin’s 16th birthday to raise up to $2 billion through “one or more public underwritten offerings of perpetual preferred stock” to buy more bitcoin, a press release said.

The uber stockpiler holds 447,470 bitcoin, achieving “BTC Yield of 48.0% in Q4 2024 and 74.3% in FY 2024,” CEO Michael Saylor posted on X.

MicroStrategy has acquired 1,070 BTC for ~$101 million at ~$94,004 per bitcoin and has achieved BTC Yield of 48.0% in Q4 2024 and 74.3% in FY 2024. As of 01/05/2025, we hodl 447,470 $BTC acquired for ~$27.97 billion at ~$62,503 per bitcoin. $MSTR https://t.co/CkLrLSkB5M
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) January 6, 2025

Other companies are following Saylor’s lead, most recently Japan’s Metaplanet, which announced plans “to expand its bitcoin holdings to 10,000” yesterday.

Happy New Year to Our Valued Shareholders! As we step into 2025, I couldn’t be more excited about what lies ahead for Metaplanet. Last year was transformational, as we broke records, expanded our Bitcoin treasury, and reinforced our position as Asia’s leading Bitcoin Treasury… pic.twitter.com/K2HsOS8TaZ
— Simon Gerovich (@gerovich) January 5, 2025

As of December 23, Metaplanet held 1,761.98 bitcoin.

Not wanting to miss out, bitcoin-mining companies like MARA Holdings and Hut 8 are aggressively adding to their stockpiles. MARA now holds 44,893 bitcoin and Hut 8 bought 990 bitcoin in December, bringing its total to 10,096.

Meanwhile, Riot Platforms announced today that it massively increased its bitcoin stash through both mining and purchase to 17,722 bitcoin, more than double what it held in December 2023.

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