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Michael Saylor (left) at Bitcoin Conference 2023 (Jason Koerner/Getty Images)

Strategy makes big bitcoin buy after period that ranked “among the worst weeks of the decade”

The digital asset stockpiler reversed course from its small sale and purchased $101 million worth of bitcoin.

Strategy announced it bought 1,550 bitcoin for $101 million, quelling fears that it would sell again and drive the price and sentiment down for the asset. Last week was bitcoin’s worst week since “the 2024 yen-carry unwind, falling 12.6%, while more than $5.7 billion in long positions were liquidated over seven days,” Timothy Misir, head of research at Blockhead Research Network, said.

The company acquired its latest stash for an average bitcoin price of $65,332 and now holds a total of 845,256. It also said it had increased its cash reserve by $100 million to $1 billion. 

Additionally, Strategy closed voting on its proposed switch from monthly to semimonthly dividends for STRC, its perpetual preferred equity instrument.

July 15 would be the first payment date under this new cadence, if approved.

Shares were up over 4% in early trading. 

Bitcoin held steady over the weekend, rebounding to $63,500 on Monday morning, up 3% in the past 24 hours. On Friday, it fell below $60,000, its lowest level since October 2024.  

Daniela Hathorn, a senior market analyst at Capital.com, said this resilience following the latest exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel stems from bitcoin having already undergone a significant correction over recent weeks.

In other words, she said, a degree of macro and liquidity risk had already been priced in.

Meanwhile, crypto liquidations have reached nearly $600 million in the past 24 hours, CoinGlass data shows. Bitcoin saw $280 million in liquidations, with the bulk in short positions.

Rajiv Sawhney, head of international portfolio management at Wave Digital Assets, told Sherwood News that the one-day liquidation map further confirms the market has flipped from bearish to tentatively bullish over the last 24 hours.

“How long this can continue is anyone’s guess, especially as bitcoin has given back some gains heading into the European morning,” Sawhney said.

Still, Misir said that crypto enters the new week under its heaviest pressure in months, as bitcoin’s weekly drawdown ranks among the worst weeks of the decade. But this time is different, he said, as prior episodes of comparable damage were usually tied to a single catastrophic event.

“This week’s pressure came from multiple sources at once: ETF redemptions, stronger labor data, the Zcash security shock, Strategy-related selling concerns, and a broader rotation toward AI-led equities,” Misir said.

Caroline Mauron, cofounder of Orbit Markets, said that traders are watching Strategy cofounder Michael Saylor’s next steps very closely.

Large bitcoin purchases will provide some short-term market relief but could worsen an already precarious treasury situation in the medium term, Mauron told Sherwood.

“Strong support has now been established at 60K, and the level is likely to be tested again on any renewed macro or geopolitical concerns,” Mauron said.

All eyes remain on bitcoin ETFs, as they have been a main support for bitcoin’s price, especially since the war in Iran began. Renewed inflows this week could inject much-needed confidence back into the asset after it suffered $1.72 billion in outflows last week, the largest exodus since February 2025, according to SoSoValue.

This marked the fourth consecutive billion-dollar weekly outflow, prompting BRN’s Misir to say “the ETF story is now central.”

While a one-week outflow can be dismissed as positioning, he said, four consecutive weeks, with the 30-day average hitting record negative territory, indicate a structural shift in institutional demand.

Adam Haeems, head of asset management at Tesseract Group, also noted that the ETFs saw around $4.4 billion in outflows over 13 consecutive sessions, the fastest withdrawals on record.

“And when demand from the largest marginal buyers fades that way, long-term levels come under pressure regardless of any single seller. The rebound is a relief move around a major long-term level, not yet a confirmed turn,” Haeems told Sherwood.

Beyond ETFs, sentiment remains cautious, as several other signals point to a stressed market in the short term.

“With CME BTC volatility currently trading around 50, a level reached only a handful of times over the past 12 months, I remain cautious that this rally is unlikely to prove sustainable,” Paul Howard, senior director at Wincent, told Sherwood.

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BitMine buys the dip, makes largest ethereum purchase this year

Despite having an unrealized loss of nearly $9.7 billion, the leading ethereum treasury firm has acquired even more of the token.

BitMine Immersion Technologies announced it has acquired 126,971 tokens over the past week, the firms largest purchase of ethereum this year. The companys total stockpile stands at 5.5 million, or around 4.6% of ethereums total supply.

We increased our buying as we believe this pullback in ETH prices does not reflect the strengthening of Ethereum fundamentals, BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement.

The acquisition comes after the crypto markets saw a broad downturn last week, with many tokens hitting multiyear lows.

Lee argued the sell-off in crypto was a superficial take. As artificial intelligence grows more capable, demand for hardened infrastructure is likely to increase alongside expectations that AI systems will expose flaws in centralized rails and weak decentralized protocols, according to Lee.

We believe this actually strengthens the use case and product market fit for hardened and reliable decentralized blockchains like ethereum, Lee said. “Thus, we believe ETH prices should not be coming under pressure.

Meanwhile, last week ethereum ETFs saw more than $173 million in outflows, marking the fourth consecutive week of net redemptions, data from SoSoValue shows.

Joe Lubin, cofounder of ethereum and current CEO of software development firm Consensys, said the recent moves by the Ethereum Foundation, namely staff turnover and leadership changes, are not evidence of a crisis, but a necessary evolution, per a CoinDesk report. Lubin emphasized that Ethereum is not on the decline, not at all,” even if “we are not front and center right now in terms of capital inflows, investments.”

$62B

Bitcoin digital asset treasuries (DATs) have taken a big hit amid bitcoin’s tumble, shedding $62 billion in value since the asset’s October 6 all-time high, Artemis data shows, with their fully diluted market cap dropping to $72 billion from $134 billion in early October.

Meanwhile, bitcoin, which has fallen below $62,000 on Friday morning, is down 50% from its all-time high. DAT pioneer Strategy’s market cap stood at $102.2 billion on October 6, according to Macro Trends, and is now down to $45.6 billion, a 55% decline. Strategy has been in hot water since it sold 32 bitcoin earlier this week, and because its digital credit instrument, STRC, has been trading below its par value. Shares of Strategy are down 17% in the past week.

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“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter” as sector sinks, with tokens hitting multiyear lows

On Thursday, altcoins swept lower as bitcoin weakened. The tokens with the biggest losses in the last 24 hours are NEAR, ethena, and Zcash, each declining double digits in the period.

Other tokens have dropped to lows not seen in over a year in the past 24 hours:

  • Ethereum dropped 4.4% to under $1,780, a level not seen since April 2025.

  • XRP declined 4.5% to an 18-month low last hit in November 2024.

  • Solana decreased 6% to trade below the $70 mark, its lowest price since December 2023.

  • Dogecoin slid below $0.09, a 27-month low last seen in February 2024.

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter as fears surrounding BTC/STRC and its potential overflow compound and overshadow anything that can be read as positive news (e.g. CLARITY movements),” according to Sean Dawson, head of research at crypto options platform Derive.xyz.

“[Altcoins] are high beta plays to BTC and are typically sold heavily in a downturn. Simply put, I’d be even more bearish on alts,” Dawson told Sherwood News.

“Further, liquidity has been drained into this year’s ‘superhot’ narrative of AI/data centers. In other words, there are just better, more exciting opportunities elsewhere,” Dawson added.

One cryptocurrency that has bucked the downtrend has been worldcoin, the native token for World, the digital identity project backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While the broader crypto market has been pushing lower, WLD has jumped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours and 90% in the past seven days, data from CoinGecko shows.

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