Strive Buys 6,182 BTC as Strategy Pauses Its Bitcoin Buying. Can Treasury Buyers Hold BTC Above $80,000?
Strategy just skipped its regular Bitcoin buys to spend $205 million elsewhere, leaving a much smaller rival to carry the weight of corporate treasury buying. Whether that shift signals trouble for Bitcoin's grip on $80,000 is the question every crypto…
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Strive (NASDAQ: ASST) announced it purchased 6,182 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) from October 17 to October 23, bringing its total holdings to 43,000 BTC. In contrast, Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR | MSTR Price Prediction), the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, did not buy any Bitcoin from October 19 to 25, choosing instead to spend $205 million repurchasing its STRC preferred stock.
The market’s response was muted; Strive’s share price rose 2.2% to $27, while Strategy’s shares rose 0.7% to $141. Bitcoin is currently trading at $80,684, approximately 36% below its peak of $126,080. This raises an important question: Can Bitcoin hold above $80,000 without Strategy’s regular purchases?
Strive Bought 6,182 BTC While Strategy Spent on Buybacks
Strive’s latest purchase is complete, but details on the price it paid or how it financed the buy remain unclear. Historically, Strive has funded its acquisitions by selling Class A shares and SATA, a perpetual preferred stock that pays a 13% annualized dividend every business day.
Meanwhile, Strategy has not announced when it will resume buying Bitcoin. The firm currently holds 848,517 BTC, with an average purchase cost of $75,446, and has a cash reserve of $4.83 billion. It is focused on buying back STRC stock under a $1 billion program to stabilize its preferred stock’s market value.
The Same Bitcoin Means Different Things for Strive and Strategy
Strive’s new Bitcoin addition accounts for about 14.4% of its total holdings, a significant move for the company, which is valued at roughly $2.47 billion. Its 43,000 BTC is now worth about $3.5 billion.
StoneX raised its price target for Strive from $32 to $43 and maintained a Buy rating. Strive funds growth through new stock sales and SATA dividends, and the company reported a GAAP net loss of $257.6 million in August, mainly due to Bitcoin markdowns.
For Strategy, that same amount of Bitcoin would represent only about 0.73% of its overall holdings. Bitcoin is still trading around 7% above Strategy’s average cost, indicating a paper gain. However, with Strategy’s stock price down 51.3% over the past year, raising funds through new stock sales to buy more Bitcoin has become costly.
Corporate Bitcoin Buying Now Leans on One Mid-Size Buyer
Previously, Strategy’s weekly purchases influenced the overall treasury buying landscape; for instance, it acquired 41,002 BTC in January alone. Now, Strive stands out as the primary buyer, while Bitcoin ETF flows have been fluctuating. Data from SoSoValue shows funds received $110.3 million on October 26, after $137.9 million in outflows on October 23—the day after their largest outflow since June.
Other treasury firms, such as Twenty One Capital and Metaplanet, haven’t disclosed their purchase figures during this time. Strive’s announcement also omitted details on its average purchase price and how much new stock it sold. Additionally, Strategy hasn’t communicated when it will resume its acquisitions. As a side note, about $12 billion in options will expire before the Fed’s October 28 decision, which could increase volatility in Bitcoin prices.
Can Treasury Buyers Maintain Bitcoin Above $80,000?
It seems unlikely that Treasury buyers can sustain Bitcoin above $80,000 without ETF support. Although Strive’s buying activity provides some stability, it cannot compensate for the substantial monthly purchases Strategy used to make. With ETF flows alternating between inflows and outflows, no single buyer is effectively maintaining strong support at $80,000.
The first support level is $79,255, about 1.8% below the current price, followed by the 30-day low at $79,107. If Bitcoin falls below this low, it could draw attention to Glassnode’s True Market Mean, near $77,600, about 3.8% lower.
The cost of this view is that if Strategy resumes its buying, it could ease pressure on these levels. The market anticipates Strategy’s next weekly disclosure, expected on November 2, as a potential turning point. If Bitcoin stays below $79,107 for another week with no purchases from Strategy, it could confirm a downward trend.
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Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst and the editor of 24/7 Wall St.'s Crypto Desk, where he covers Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Solana and the altcoins investors search for most. His work focuses on price levels, spot ETF flows, on-chain data and the regulatory decisions that move crypto markets, written so a first-time buyer and a seasoned trader can both use it.
Sam has written about crypto professionally since 2019 and has published more than 2,000 articles. Before joining 24/7 Wall St., he wrote for crypto media outlets and Web3 companies and ghostwrote for crypto founders and token launches. His analysis is syndicated on Yahoo Finance, MSN and AOL and has been cited by other crypto news sites. He also founded MacLabs Marketing, a content and personal branding agency for crypto founders and executives.
When he isn't reading charts, Sam is usually at the gym or watching One Piece, a series he maintains has better tokenomics than most altcoins.
