Morning Minute: Saylor’s Strategy Back in Green As BTC Soars to $78k

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors close massive week up 20-30%; BTC at $78.5k
• 10 alts gain 50% or more on the week, spanning memes, Defi and perps
• ETH / BTC prints fresh golden cross
• ZEC jumps 65% on week ahead of Grayscale spot ETF incoming
• Robinhood Chain tokens post major rebound after Vlad Tenev podcast

🏛️ Strategy Is Back in the Green on Bitcoin for the First Time Since July

Strategy holds 840,447 Bitcoin bought at an average price of $75,385, a position that spent most of the summer deep underwater. Bitcoin’s five-day run past $78,000 pushed the company back in the green.

At $78,400, the stack is worth about $65.89 billion against $63.36 billion paid, an unrealized gain near $2.53 billion, or 4.0%. That's a swing of roughly $15.5 billion in six weeks. In July, with Bitcoin near $58,000, the position was about $13B in the red. MSTR closed Friday at $119.25, up 27.4% on the month and its highest level in two months, though still 67% below its 52-week high of $365.21.

Of course, this reversal comes after Saylor did what he said he wouldn’t. Michael Saylor spent years telling anyone who would listen that Strategy would never sell Bitcoin. Since May the company has sold 6,948 BTC for about $432.5 million, including 1,690 BTC for $109 million during the week ending August 9, with proceeds going to buy back STRC, its variable-rate preferred stock. The week after that, Strategy left Bitcoin alone and raised $334 million selling MSTR shares instead, using the money for preferred dividends, more STRC buybacks, and a dollar reserve that now sits at $6.7 billion after another week of major fundraising. Through the entire stretch when Bitcoin traded in the low-to-mid $60,000s, well below the company’s own cost basis, Strategy was a net seller of Bitcoin and a net seller of its own stock. It did not buy the dip.

So it wasn’t Saylor who bottomed Bitcoin—it was likely Scott Bessent who kicked off yield curve control last week, leading to a flood of capital into the Bitcoin ETFs. Saylor’s just riding the wave along with the rest of us.

With that said, he does have ~$6.7B in cash on hand and STRC is closing in on that $100 level ($95.60 this morning). We will find out soon if he’s started buying again and/or when he plans to. But at this point, it’s pretty clear that Bitcoin doesn’t need his buy pressure…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are very green as Bitcoin closed its biggest weekly candle of all time; BTC +23% at $78.9k (weekly % gain); ETH +31% at $2,500; SOL +26% at $96; HYPE +34% at $80.66 (new ATH)
• Top alt movers on the week include ENA (+93%), TRUMP (+79%), PUMP (+73%) and ZEC (+65%)
• Oil -2% at $85.20; Gold +2% at $4,710
• Stock futures are green; DOW +1%, Nasdaq +0.4%
• ETH / BTC printed a fresh golden cross during this rally; the last time it happened, ETH made a new ATH within months
• Zcash jumped 48% past $800 to its highest level since January 2018, as Grayscale filed a fourth amendment to convert its Zcash Trust into a spot ETF under the ticker ZCSH
• Ledger patched a vulnerability in certain clear-signing flows of its Ethereum app two weeks ago, with CTO Charles Guillemet saying users on current firmware are protected
• Coldcard shipped new firmware after a randomness flaw let attackers drain over $114 million, with an AI-assisted audit turning up further bugs in transaction approval, USB handling, and firmware validation
• The Crypto Council for Innovation and Blockchain Association sued Illinois over its 0.2% digital asset tax, arguing it violates the US Constitution, the Illinois Constitution, and the Internet Tax Freedom Act
• BitMart is weighing a partial restart and creditor payouts less than four weeks after announcing a full shutdown, with White & Case hired and a roadmap due September 9
• Crypto card spending tripled to $1.04B in July, with dollar stablecoins funding 70% of more than 10M transactions and the average purchase rising to $86
• Stablecoin neobank Fasset raised $68 million led by Japan's SBI Group at a $1 billion valuation, bringing its total funding this year to $119 million

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $307M in net inflows on Friday, capping a $1.92B week; the ETH ETFs saw $184M in inflows on Friday and $693M for the week

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mixed but closed a very green week; DOGE +31%, SHIB +24%, PEPE +57%, PENGU +61%, TRUMP +79%, BONK +38%
• Robinhood chain saw major rebounds after a podcast with Vlad Tenev commenting on the ecosystem circulated; Cashcat +34%, PONS +75%, AI +50% and Stonkbroker +33%
• Solana leaders included Cyberleek (+10x), Catalorian (+20x), Dopameme (+14x) and cc (+100%); Ansem -7% to $255M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Solana validators began voting on three proposals including a network constitution and doubling the disinflation rate to 30%, with results due Thursday around 15:30 UTC
• Pump.fun did $12.9M in revenue last week, its highest since January (PUMP +73% on the week)
• Kalshi is now blocked in Washington, Michigan, and Nevada as CFTC Chair Michael Selig moves to write event-contract rules and add consumer protection requirements.

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly green; Punks -2% at 32 ETH, BAYC +3% at 8.23 ETH, Pudgy +8% at 4.34 ETH; Stonkbrokers +20% to 5.4 ETH
• Stackers (+50%), Cash Cats (+37%) and Quotrons (+13%) led top movers
• FWA’s drops page went live ahead of the first mint FWAIR PFPs coming today at 12 pm ET