News of a new business declaring it had added Bitcoin to its balance sheet seemed to appear every other week last summer. biotech companies. hotel chains. Young miners whose names were unknown. After reading Michael Saylor’s playbook, they all came to the conclusion that investing heavily in Bitcoin would lead to a higher stock price and a level of credibility that their main businesses couldn’t always provide on their own. The frenzy seemed genuine. And it was for a while.
That was a long time ago. The corporate Bitcoin buying frenzy has quietly ended with little fanfare. Purchases made by bitcoin treasury firms other than Strategy have decreased 99% from their peak in August 2025, according to CryptoQuant. Together, those companies purchased about 1,000 BTC in the last 30 days.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Company | Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy Inc.) — NASDAQ: MSTR |
| Key figure | Michael Saylor — Executive Chairman & Co-founder |
| Founded | 1989, Tysons Corner, Virginia, USA |
| Total BTC holdings | 762,000+ BTC (76% of all corporate Bitcoin holdings globally) |
| Recent purchases (30 days) | ~45,000 BTC — highest 30-day total since April 2025 |
| All other corporate buyers (30 days) | ~1,000 BTC combined ▼ 99% from Aug 2025 peak |
| Rivals’ market share (Oct 2025) | 95% of corporate BTC purchases → now 2% |
| MSTR stock vs 52-week high | ▼ 71% off peak |
| Bitcoin price vs Oct 2024 peak | ▼ 48% from all-time high |
| Cash reserves | ~$1.4 billion (enabling continued purchases during downturns) |
| Strategy’s position on forced selling | Saylor calls concerns “unfounded” — cites strong capital structure |
| Reference / official | Strategy official website — strategy.com |
Strategy purchased 45,000 during that same period. This math is compelling enough to make you pause and read it again. Even though Bitcoin is currently about 48% below its October peak, one company now owns 76% of all corporate Bitcoin holdings worldwide, and it is purchasing at its fastest rate in almost a year.
In one version of this tale, Saylor just appears obstinate. Strategy’s stock is currently trading more than 71% below its 52-week high, Bitcoin has been struggling for six months running, and the imitators who followed him have mostly seen their shares plummet. Doubling down at this time seems hard to defend by practically every traditional risk management metric. However, there is something almost methodical about what Strategy is doing; it’s the more subdued confidence of someone who has already made up their mind not to sell, rather than the breathless conviction of a gambler pressing a losing bet.
In contrast, the imitators are in a truly uncomfortable position. Many of the thirty or so public companies that developed bitcoin treasury strategies are currently holding underwater positions. The investor base that once applauded those purchases—attracted by the novelty and the price momentum—has largely moved on, and some own assets that were worth much more when they were purchased. Using Saylor’s approach when Bitcoin is rising is one thing. When the headlines stop being nice, it’s quite another to keep it up. It turns out that borrowing conviction is more difficult than borrowing a business model.
Saylor’s scale gives it a level of stability that smaller players just cannot match, something that most of those businesses never had. Strategy can continue to make purchases during drawdowns that would force others to make difficult choices because it has more than $1.4 billion in cash reserves. When worries about forced selling surfaced earlier this year, Saylor called them “unfounded.” The idea was that a significant enough decline in Bitcoin might force Strategy to liquidate. He might be correct. On paper, the capital structure seems to be built to withstand precisely this type of persistent pressure. Nobody is yet able to determine whether that confidence endures when one leg is down.
It’s difficult to ignore how drastically the mood of the market has changed since last summer. At the time, companies were announcing treasury purchases to immediate stock price spikes, JD Vance was giving speeches at Bitcoin conferences, and it seemed like cryptocurrency had finally made a lasting impact in boardrooms. The story has become hollow now that Bitcoin is plummeting and imitators are suffering losses. What’s left is essentially one man and one enormous quantity: 762,000 Bitcoin, owned by a business that has completely reconstructed itself around a single asset class.
There’s a parallel to think about. In its early years, Tesla attracted both sincere believers and a great deal of skepticism. The gap between the two groups frequently seemed unbridgeable until it abruptly changed. Although the products and economics are different, the structure of the wager bears some similarities to Tesla’s strategy.
A founder with a theory of the future that the majority of the financial establishment has yet to fully embrace, a willingness to absorb losses that would have broken a more cautious operator, and an almost religious conviction. Saylor might just be ahead of something that will eventually become apparent. It’s also possible that the 45,000 BTC he recently purchased will turn out to be the most costly display of obstinacy in business history.
There’s no doubt that the sidelines are filling up. The majority of those who attempted to follow him have given up. Measured in tens of thousands of coins, the gap between Strategy and the rest of the corporate cryptocurrency world is widening every week rather than getting smaller.