The largest corporate bitcoin holder added just 250 coins. Bitmine said it is "largely finished" buying ether at 4.9% of supply, and SkyAI has sold about half its Solana to fund a $201 million tender offer.
Three crypto-treasury companies disclosed over the weekend and on Monday that they are buying less crypto, or in SkyAI's case, selling it.
Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, said it bought 250 bitcoin for $21.5 million from Oct. 5 to Oct. 11, at an average price of $86,194. In the same week it spent $192.4 million repurchasing about 1.93 million shares of its STRC variable-rate preferred stock. That is about nine times as much on its own securities as on bitcoin.
Strategy's balance sheet
Strategy holds 848,250 bitcoin bought for a total of $64.0 billion, an average of $75,444 each. At about $82,400, the price on Monday afternoon, those holdings are worth roughly $69.9 billion, about 9% above cost.
The company funded last week's bitcoin purchase with $21 million raised by selling common stock through its at-the-market program and $0.5 million of cash. It sold no preferred stock. It has $354.8 million of authorized preferred repurchase capacity remaining, a $4.88 billion U.S. dollar reserve and $640.5 million of cash.
The STRC repurchases continue a pattern from earlier weeks, when buybacks were similar in size to bitcoin purchases or larger. STRC pays a variable dividend and traded just below its $100 par value on Friday. Retiring it below par reduces Strategy's dividend obligations at a discount.
Bitmine
BitMine Immersion Technologies said it held 6,028,946 ether as of Oct. 11, about 4.9% of the 122.1 million in circulation, after adding 12,532 in the past week. Of those, 5,067,309 are staked. The company also holds $612 million of cash and marketable securities. Its release describes the company as "largely finished" buying ether, and Bitmine has set a target of owning 5% of the supply.
SkyAI
SkyAI said late Sunday that it plans a tender offer for up to 95% of each class of its common stock and its pre-funded and advisor warrants at $3.00, a 65% premium to its Oct. 9 close, for up to about $201 million. The company said it recently sold about 1 million Solana tokens, roughly half its holdings, to help fund the offer and may sell more. The tender is set to begin around Oct. 15 and requires that at least half of each class be tendered and that Solana stay above $100 throughout. Solana traded near $107.60 on Monday. SkyAI's board also rejected another unsolicited proposal from Forward Industries.
The flow picture
Bitcoin was near $82,400 on Monday afternoon, down about 1.5%, and ether was near $2,510. U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds had about $680 million of net outflows in the week of Oct. 5 to Oct. 9, and ether funds lost about $542 million.
Market implications
One reading is that the buying phase for corporate crypto treasuries is ending across all three major assets. Strategy is defending its preferred stock, Bitmine is near its target, and SkyAI is a net seller, while fund flows are negative.
A second reading is that each pullback has its own cause. Buying back STRC below par is cheap financing management, Bitmine set its 5% cap in advance, and SkyAI is in a contest for control. Strategy still has more than $5.5 billion in dollar reserves and cash and could resume large purchases.
What to watch
Strategy's weekly disclosure next Monday, whether STRC returns to par and new issuance resumes, the start of SkyAI's tender and daily ETF flows will show whether institutional demand is returning.