From Decrypt · By Tyler Warner
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. And check out our daily news show 'FOMO HOUR' covering all of the top stories and market action.
GM!
Today’s top news:
Crypto majors rebound ahead of CPI; BTC at $83.6k
Vivek’s Strive bought $280M in BTC last week, 13x Saylor’s buys
BTC and ETH ETFs flip back to inflows, ETH breaks 10-day outflow streak
STRC hits $99.90 and highest level since May depeg
Solana core dev announces Alpenglow live on October 21 on mainnet
BitcoinBTC · USD$83,281−0.25%Oct 7Oct 9Oct 11Oct 12Oct 14$84.2k$83.1k$81.9k$80.7k24h HighHigh$84,02524h LowLow$82,919VolVol$1.0BMarket projectionsOdds by MyriadTodayBelow $84,000Below $84k54% chanceThis weekBelow $84,000Below $84k53% chance→Buy Bitcoin with USDTPowered by JupiterPrice data by CoinGeckoCoinGeckoMore Bitcoin news and projections →🟠 Move Over, Saylor, There’s a New Top Buyer in Town
For five years, “who bought the most Bitcoin this week” had one answer. That’s quietly stopped being true.
Vivek’s Strive Asset Management (Nasdaq: ASST), run by Matthew Cole, just scooped up 3,311 BTC for roughly $280 million between Oct. 5 and 9, buying the dip at an average of ~$84,500 as the market sold off. It’s Strive’s biggest single purchase since January, and it caps a genuine tear: $94.5M in late September, $169M in early October, then $280M. Total stack now sits at 32,773 BTC, about $2.73 billion.
In that same stretch, Michael Saylor’s Strategy bought 250 BTC for about $21.5 million. Strive outbought Strategy by roughly 13 to 1.
This isn’t a one-week fluke of timing. Strategy’s buying has shrunk for two straight weeks, and that same week it spent nearly nine times more buying back its own preferred shares ($192M) than it spent on Bitcoin. Its mNAV just dropped below 1.0 for the first time, meaning the market values the company at less than the Bitcoin sitting on its balance sheet.
Now to level set by total holdings, this isn’t remotely close. Strategy still sits on 848,250 BTC—a ~$51 billion position, more than 25 times Strive’s stack. Saylor isn’t being dethroned as the king of Bitcoin treasuries. But “biggest holder” and “most aggressive buyer right now” have, for the first time, become two different titles.
The newcomer is accumulating at the pace the pioneer has abandoned—and it just told us how it plans to keep going. Strive is selling 5 million shares of a new preferred at $100 a piece, a $500 million raise paying a fixed 15% daily, with proceeds earmarked for more Bitcoin. That’s a 15% annual coupon—$75 million a year in cash out the door—which is a very expensive way to be right. But with STRC at $99.90, Saylor’s BTC faucet is about to turn back on, too. Let the battle of the Bitcoin giants begin…