Ahead of the fourth-quarter earnings report tonight, shares are down another 13% as bitcoin falls back to $68,000.
Leveraged anti-strategy ETFs are booming as shares in the bitcoin holder slide.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) sharp sell‑off has intensified pressure on Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, even as it continues to expand its already massive cryptocurrency holdings. On Monday, the firm disclosed another BTC purchase at a time when prices were sliding to levels not seen in almost a year. Strategy Adds Bitcoin During Market Sell‑Off According to a securities filing released on Monday, Strategy acquired an additional 855 Bitcoin over the prior seven days, paying an average price of about $87,974 per token. The transaction amounted to roughly $75.3 million and further increased the company’s exposure to Bitcoin. The timing of the purchase, however, coincided with a steep downturn in the broader crypto market. Bitcoin fell below Strategy’s average acquisition cost toward $74,500, adding to investor unease. Related Reading: What’s Next For Bitcoin? Two Key Scenarios: Will It Crash To $60,000 Or Surge To $100,000? That price sat slightly below Strategy’s reported average purchase price of $76,052 per Bitcoin, raising concerns that the company’s sizable holdings could move underwater if the decline deepens. Market reaction was swift. MSTR fell 8% on Monday as Bitcoin slid below that average cost level. When Bitcoin briefly sank to its lowest point since April 2024, the value of Strategy’s total Bitcoin holdings stood at approximately $53.1 billion. A subsequent rebound toward around $79,000 lifted the valuation of the company’s Bitcoin position beyond $55 billion, offering some relief but little clarity on near‑term direction. Worst In The Nasdaq 100 So far, Strategy’s shares have suffered a steep decline. The stock is down 48% in 2025, making it the worst performer in the Nasdaq 100 index. For comparison, the second‑worst stock in the index, Charter Communications, has fallen 39% over the same period, underscoring the scale of Strategy’s underperformance. Amid these challenges, Strategy is also scheduled to release its fourth‑quarter 2025 results on Thursday. Wall Street expectations suggest modest top‑line pressure but a sharp improvement in profitability. The Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for fourth‑quarter revenue of $119.6 million, representing a 0.91% decline from the same period a year earlier. Earnings, however, are projected at $46.02 per share, unchanged over the past month and a dramatic turnaround from a loss of $3.20 per share reported in the prior‑year quarter. Analysts expect the company’s fourth‑quarter performance to reflect continued financial momentum, driven largely by Bitcoin‑related gains and disciplined capital allocation. Related Reading: Crypto Hacks Explode: $370 Million Stolen In January Alone: Researchers By the end of January 2026, the firm’s Bitcoin holdings had climbed to approximately 712,647 BTC, up from 640,808 as of Oct. 26, 2025, further increasing its sensitivity to price movements in the digital asset. Still, recent share price performance highlights the risks tied to that strategy. Over the past three months, MSTR has fallen 43.4%, significantly underperforming the broader Finance sector, which gained 4.3% over the same period. The stock has also lagged other Bitcoin‑exposed companies. During that timeframe, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark and Coinbase Global posted declines of 25.3%, 32.0% and 41.1%, respectively, pointing to widespread weakness among Bitcoin proxy stocks, though none have fallen as sharply as Strategy. Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
As the Bitcoin market reels from a sharp sell-off and uncertainty grips the broader crypto space, most attention remains locked on falling prices and broken support levels. Meanwhile, Theo4 is executing with precision on Polymarket, steadily building a reputation as one of the platform’s most dominant traders. While panic and emotion drive losses elsewhere, Theo4’s performance underscores a different approach. How Theo4 Quietly Became Polymarket’s Standout Performer While much of the crypto world fixated on the Bitcoin crash, Theo4 has quietly become one of the most successful and talked-about traders on Polymarket. A crypto analyst known as BeingInvested has revealed on X that since joining the platform in October 2024, Theo4 has made just 14 predictions and has highly concentrated positions that have generated an astonishing $22.05 million in profits. This accumulation places the trader among the largest and most profitable accounts publicly visible on the platform. Related Reading: 70% Of Institutional Investors Aren’t Buying The Bitcoin Top Narrative – Here’s Why Theo4 placed huge bets at prices that turned out to be still deeply attractive: $0.37 on Donald Trump winning the popular vote, $0.60 on a Trump presidency, 35 cents on a Republican double, and $0.63-$0.66 betting against a Harris win, and several aligned positions reinforcing the same core thesis. Rather than scattering capital across many outcomes, Theo4 has extremely well-timed directional conviction around the Trump sweep narrative. Amid the BTC drawdown, the Epstein theory is making waves. Analyst Zynx argued that it’s disturbing how Bitcoin critics are pushing the Epstein narrative. These are the same people who repeatedly claimed that Strategy was on the verge of liquidation. They cannot tolerate the reality that BTC is winning, so they resort to misinformation to undermine it. Firstly, they labeled BTC as a tool for criminals, and now they are attempting to associate it with some of the most nefarious individuals imaginable. However, no matter how aggressively they try to taint the image of BTC, Zynx noted that it will never stop people from buying, and it is the only thing that sets them free. Why Understanding The Expanded Flat Pattern As the Bitcoin flat pattern continues to develop into its final leg, it’s important to understand how the expanded flat pattern actually behaves. According to Decode, in these structures, the price can break high-time-frame support, print a lower low, and then continue higher afterward. This behavior runs directly against the dominant bearish narrative that a lower low must signal a confirmed bear market. Related Reading: Is The Bitcoin Bottom In? CMT Reveals What Traders Need To See Now Decode pointed out that the structure shown on Google and Nvidia charts is not always the case. In reality, it is often the wave of traders going short at the break of the structure that fuels the reversal higher. “Trends are not black and white, bull or bear, but there are other ways to look at things,” Decode noted. Featured image from Pngtree, chart from Tradingview.com
Strategy's holdings account for more than 3.4% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply — worth around $56 billion.
Bitcoin was little changed Monday as volatility spikes and crypto equities remained under pressure ahead of the U.S. market open.
Bitcoin treasuries are designed to look uncomfortable in drawdowns, because the trade they're running is simple: take a volatile asset, put it on a corporate balance sheet, and finance more of it through capital markets. When Bitcoin drops, the mark-to-market hit is the point, not the punchline. The real question is whether the company can […]
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Strategy’s ability to fund a large bitcoin purchase appears limited after a weak performance for the price of its common and preferred shares.
The dividend increase follows renewed pressure on STRC, which has been trading below its $100 par value.
The company’s stack now stands at 712,647 BTC, worth about $62 billion at the current price of $87,500.
Strategy's holdings account for approximately 3.4% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply — worth around $62.5 billion.
After a brief slowdown in its pace of bitcoin acquisition, Strategy has purchased almost $3.5 billion of BTC over the last two weeks.
Bitcoin rebounded above $91,000 after Trump said he was calling off new tariffs on eight EU countries related to his Greenland ambitions.
Analyst Lance Vitanza noted the role of the company’s preferred equity in last week’s $2.1 billion bitcoin purchase.
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) acquired an additional 22,305 Bitcoin for approximately $2.13 billion between Jan. 12 and Jan. 19, continuing an aggressive accumulation campaign that has absorbed 3.38% of the top crypto's total supply. That works out to 3.55% of the circulating supply of 19.97 million coins. The purchases were executed at an average price of […]
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The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Strategy's holdings account for more than 3% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply — worth around $64.5 billion.
Strategy remains an effective proxy for bitcoin exposure, particularly for investors with a long-term view, analyst Lance Vitanza said.
Arthur Hayes is positioning for a 2026 liquidity rebound, arguing that Bitcoin’s weak 2025 wasn’t a referendum on “crypto narratives” so much as a straightforward dollar-credit story. In his latest essay, “Frowny Cloud,” the Maelstrom CIO says he is adding risk via Strategy (MSTR), Japan’s Metaplanet, and Zcash (ZEC) as he expects US dollar liquidity to inflect higher after a year in which Bitcoin lagged both gold and US tech stocks. Hayes frames 2025 as an awkward year for the standard cross-asset shorthand that treats Bitcoin as either digital gold or a high-beta proxy for US tech. In his telling, Bitcoin behaved “as expected” under tightening conditions, while gold and the Nasdaq 100 rose for different reasons despite falling dollar liquidity. Related Reading: Here’s Why Bitcoin Volatility Sparks Fresh Attention On MicroStrategy He argues gold’s bid is being driven by sovereign balance sheets rather than retail mania, rooted in distrust of US Treasury exposure after prior asset-freeze precedents. “If the US president steals your money, it’s an instant zero. Does it then matter what price you buy gold at?” he writes, casting central banks as price-insensitive buyers. On equities, Hayes leans into an industrial-policy interpretation of the AI trade. His claim is that the US and China have effectively treated “winning AI” as strategic, dulling the usual market discipline and helping explain why the Nasdaq decoupled from his dollar-liquidity index in 2025. That divergence matters because it sets up his core takeaway for 2026: Bitcoin needs expanding dollar liquidity to regain momentum. “Bitcoin and the Nasdaq rise when dollar liquidity expands. The only problem is the recent divergence,” Hayes writes, before returning to the “vicissitudes of dollar liquidity” as the primary driver he wants to track. The Three-Pillar Liquidity Pitch Hayes’ 2026 outlook hinges on a sharp rebound in dollar credit creation. He cites three channels: a growing Fed balance sheet via Reserve Management Purchases (RMP), commercial-bank lending into “strategic industries,” and lower mortgage rates catalyzed by policy-driven demand for mortgage-backed securities. In his account, quantitative tightening faded as a dominant headwind in late 2025, with QT ending in December and RMP beginning as a new, steady buyer. He claims RMP “at a minimum” expands the balance sheet by $40 billion per month, and expects that pace to rise as government funding needs increase. The second leg is bank credit creation, which he says accelerated in 4Q25, with large lenders willing to extend loans where government equity stakes or offtake agreements reduce default risk. The third is housing: Hayes points to Trump-backed directives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to deploy $200 billion toward MBS purchases, arguing that lower mortgage rates could unlock a familiar wealth effect and, by extension, more credit. Related Reading: Bitcoin Accumulation Continues: Strategy Purchases 1,287 BTC Amid Rising Prices He ties the pieces together with a simple conclusion: if liquidity turns, Bitcoin should follow. “Bitcoin … and dollar liquidity bottomed around the same time,” he writes, arguing that the next major leg depends less on sentiment than on renewed credit expansion. MSTR, Metaplanet, And ZCash Hayes describes himself as a “degen speculator” and says Maelstrom is already “nearly fully invested,” but he still wants “MOAR risk” to capture upside convexity if Bitcoin reclaims higher levels. Rather than using perpetuals or options, he says he’s long Strategy and Metaplanet for levered exposure via corporate balance sheets. His timing argument is valuation-relative: he compares each company’s “DAT” to Bitcoin priced in the relevant currency (yen for Metaplanet, dollars for Strategy) and says those ratios sit near the low end of the past two years, after being “down substantially” from mid-2025 peaks. He adds a key condition: “If Bitcoin can retake $110,000, investors will get the itch to go long Bitcoin through these vehicles. Given the leverage embedded in the capital structure of these businesses, they will outperform Bitcoin on the upside.” He also flags continued accumulation of Zcash. Hayes argues the departure of developers at Electric Coin Company (ECC) is not bearish: “We continue to add to our Zcash position. The departure of the devs at ECC is not bearish. I firmly believe they will ship better, more impactful products within their own for-profit entity. I’m thankful for the opportunity to buy discounted ZEC from weak hands.” At press time, MSTR traded at $179.33. Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
Despite the target cut, TD Cowen said Strategy remains an attractive vehicle for investors seeking bitcoin exposure.
According to on-chain data, companies have piled into Bitcoin at a pace that now outstrips new supply. Corporate treasuries held by public and private firms rose from about 854,000 BTC to roughly 1.11 million BTC over the past six months, an increase of around 260,000 BTC — roughly 43,000 BTC per month. This adds close to $25 billion in value to corporate balance sheets and points to a growing appetite among firms for holding the coin, on-chain analytics provider Glassnode disclosed, Tuesday. Related Reading: Dogecoin Bulls Watch $0.28 As Breakout Signals Stack Up Corporate Treasuries Swell A single firm dominates that pile. Strategy now controls the largest share of corporate Bitcoin, holding 687,410 BTC after a fresh buy earlier this month. The company disclosed it acquired 13,627 BTC between January 5 and January 11, its biggest purchase since last July. Reports have highlighted how this concentration means a few big buyers still shape the corporate treasury picture. Over the past 6 months, Bitcoin treasuries held by public and private companies have grown from ~854K BTC to ~1.11M BTC. That’s an increase of ~260K BTC, or roughly ~43K BTC per month, highlighting the steady expansion of corporate balance-sheet exposure to Bitcoin.… https://t.co/hHXjcSDDj4 pic.twitter.com/oluVGO2bGD — glassnode (@glassnode) January 13, 2026 Smaller, but still significant corporate holders are visible on the list. MARA Holdings, for example, holds about 53,250 BTC. That makes it one of the largest corporate holders after Strategy, and shows that miners and mining firms are also choosing to keep a chunk of the coin they create. ETF Demand Could Tighten Supply Exchange-traded funds are part of the story. Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US pulled in more than $20 billion in flows during 2025, with some funds taking the largest share of those inflows. Analysts say ETF buying can soak up fresh supply and, if consistent, might remove available coins from the market for long periods. That dynamic has been flagged as one reason corporate accumulation could matter more now than in past cycles. Miners Are Producing Less Than Corporates Are Buying Over the same six months, miners are estimated to have created about 82,000 BTC. That means corporate buying has outpaced mining issuance by roughly three to one. In plain terms: more Bitcoin is being added to company balance sheets than is coming out of the ground, which tightens available supply if buyers continue to hold rather than sell. Related Reading: Futures Frenzy Pushed Crypto Exchange Volume To Nearly $80 Trillion In 2025 Price Action And Macro Watch Bitcoin has been trading in a narrow range near $92,000 ahead of key US inflation figures, with the $90,000 level seen as a psychological marker for traders. Safe-haven interest has stayed firm amid geopolitical noise and questions about central bank policy, leaving prices supported but range-bound. Short-term moves will likely reflect both ETF flows and whether existing holders keep selling into demand. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
In an era marked by rising inflation, Bitcoin was framed as a radical experiment in digital cash. However, as the global economic landscape has shifted, the narrative around BTC has changed. It is now being discussed as a modern savings tool designed for a world where traditional savings are steadily losing their purchasing power. Normalisation Of Bitcoin As A Savings Asset A common framing of Bitcoin today is that it is a savings technology, digital gold, and something to hold, rather than use. According to Ben SAN’s post on X, that framing has become incomplete and ultimately wrong. This is because BTC is not meant to sit alongside fiat as another savings vehicle, but to replace fiat as a monetary base and a financial base that cannot be used or function as money. Related Reading: Bitcoin Supply Is Being Absorbed By Powerful Financial Players — What This Means However, for BTC to operate as a form of finance, it has to be usable at scale. That usability at scale implies execution, settlement abstraction, fast interactions, and cost-efficient transactions. BTC layer 1 is designed for finality and neutrality, not to satisfy these requirements, and it shouldn’t be. This is why BTC needs layer 2s to operate as money. “Once you accept that Bitcoin needs L2s to be usable as money, you stop asking whether alts are competing with Bitcoin and start asking whether they are serving Bitcoin,” the expert stated. If acceptance of altcoins is ever possible in the BTC-first community, it won’t come from alternative monetary assets. Instead, the acceptance of the altcoins will only come from systems that keep BTC as the unit of account and native asset, while extending its usability crucially without weakening its guarantees. In these cases, auxiliary tokens may be introduced, but only where BTC is structurally incapable of performing the required coordination or incentive functions around expressiveness and yield. Furthermore, any non-BTC asset that has a legitimate chance of being accepted within the community will earn that legitimacy by filling those gaps in a way BTC itself cannot fulfill. History Shows What Happens After These Bitcoin Buys Crypto analyst Mattertrades highlighted that Bitcoin is trading above the weekly resistance, and the path is slow and clear. This setup is a result of Michael Saylor stepping in this week with his largest purchase since July, acquiring $1.5 billion worth of BTC. The last time he did this, BTC surged to $126,000. Related Reading: Bitcoin Demand Remains Weak: Setting The Stage For Long-Term Accumulation At the same time, the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI)-related news for Strategy was very bullish, and it actually attracted more buyers. Mattertrades concluded that this is how a bullish case quietly forms. If Saylor’s purchases bring in more buyers, reflexivity will begin because when he starts accumulating such large amounts again, other players will follow suit. Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Strategy's holdings account for more than 3% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply — worth around $62 billion.
The threat of a massive forced sell-off in crypto-linked equities has been averted. However, that reprieve comes with a structural catch that fundamentally alters the economics of the “Bitcoin Treasury” trade. On Jan. 6, the dominant benchmark provider for global equity and ETF markets, MSCI Inc., announced it will retain “Digital Asset Treasury Companies” (DATCOs) […]
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MSCI won’t drop firms like Strategy from indexes yet, but a broader rule change may still be on the table
MSCI said it will continue to speak with market participants and evaluate whether it needs to create new “assessment criteria."
Shares of the Michael Saylor-led firm had been under pressure not just from weak bitcoin prices, but also the chance that the indexing giant might exclude DATs from its indexes.
The new governance token targets a roughly 7% annual yield funded by income from Strategy’s bitcoin-linked preferred stock.