Morning Minute: Saylor’s Back Buying Bitcoin

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 are mixed with Hype leading; BTC at $78k
• ETF inflows stay green with $217M for BTC and $88M for ETH
• Kraken in talks with Hyperliquid to bring perps to the US (HYPE +3%)
• Former SEC & CFTC officials urge lighter rules for perps
• Robinhood Chain beats Hyperliquid in revenue as token leaders soar

💰 Saylor Sold BTC at $62,000 And Bought It Back at $80,000

Strategy spent the summer doing something it had never done before—selling Bitcoin. Between May and August the company let go of 6,948 BTC for about $432.5 million, roughly $62,250 a coin.

On Monday it bought again for the first time since June, picking up 4,603 BTC for $369.7 million at an average of $80,318. That’s a 29% higher price tag than it got for the coins it sold, and the company is still 2,345 BTC lighter than it was in the spring.

The reason for both moves is the same instrument—STRC. Strategy funds Bitcoin purchases by issuing stock and preferred shares, and when STRC slipped below its $100 par value in June, that funding route closed. The company built a Digital Credit Capital Framework authorizing up to $1.25 billion of Bitcoin sales to cover preferred dividends and buy back those shares at a discount. It sold Bitcoin because selling equity had gotten too expensive. Now MSTR has recovered enough that equity is the cheaper option again, so it went back to the old playbook. Last week it sold 4,531,421 MSTR shares for $602.8 million net, sending $369.7 million to Bitcoin, $151.8 million to STRC buybacks, $50.7 million to preferred dividends, and $30 million into cash.

Strategy wasn’t alone Monday. Strive added 1,800 BTC for roughly $143 million at an average of $79,431, bringing its stack to 23,156 BTC worth about $1.76 billion. Tom Lee’s Bitmine made its largest Ethereum purchase since June. Three treasury companies stepped back in on the same day after a summer where most of them either sat out or sold. Some potential signal there, it seems.

Now, jokes about Saylor’s terrible fill price aside (seriously, $80,318 average?), this was actually a pretty positive move by Strategy. They sold $600M of MSTR stock and MSTR stock was still up 5% on the week. They bought BTC and STRC and still managed to raise cash. So reserves are up across BTC and Cash. That seems good for just about everyone besides MSTR holders (but they clearly don’t care about being diluted at this point).

Now we will wait and see if this was a one-off week or if this is Saylor’s new normal headed into Q4 2026.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors were mixed with Hype leading; BTC -0.8% at $78k; ETH +0.2% at $2,455; SOL -1% at $102.2; HYPE +3% at $84
• Top alt movers include ARB (+30%), CRV (+18%) and UNI (+14%)
• Oil even at $87; Gold -1% at $4,430
• Stock futures are red as bond yields rise; DOW -0.5%, Nasdaq -1%
• Kraken parent Payward is in advanced talks with Hyperliquid Labs to bring perpetual futures to US traders, days after Trump said the CFTC was working on a compliant onshore path
• A bipartisan group of former SEC and CFTC officials urged regulators toward lighter derivatives rules, warning that miscalibrated treatment keeps a $90 trillion offshore perps market from coming onshore
• Wallets tied to North Korea’s Lazarus Group sold more than $30 million in Bitcoin on Hyperliquid over three weeks, rotating into ETH and SOL and moving funds to Kraken, LBank, and KuCoin
• Kalshi permanently banned George Santos and fined him $71,356 for trading a market on his own State of the Union attendance, then making false statements to move the price for a $17,839.57 profit
• Sberbank plans to accept ETH and USDT as loan collateral alongside Bitcoin, once Russia’s new crypto law takes effect and regulators clear the assets for public trading
• Félix raised $200 million in Series B funding, splitting $87 million of equity led by a16z and a $113 million credit facility from General Catalyst, to expand its WhatsApp remittance service into lending and savings
• The London Stock Exchange partnered with Kraken parent Payward to tokenize the 100 largest UK-listed companies as xStocks, with the first tokens due within weeks and LSE 24 listings planned for 2027 pending approval

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mixed; DOGE even, SHIB +2%, PEPE -3%, PENGU even, TRUMP -1%, SPX +10%; Fartcoin +1%
• Robinhood chain leaders had a huge day; PONS +27%; AI +100%; Boner +300%; Up +30%; Moo +300% and Mancer +80%
• Solana leaders included GPro (+80x to $3M), Useless (+50%), and Stonk (+30%); Ansem even at $290M
• BSC was led by Marscoi +80% to $88M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were slightly red; Punks -1% at 31.7 ETH, BAYC -1% at 7.65 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4 ETH
• Chain Mancers (+70%), Cache Flow (+90%) and Argonauts (+28%) led top movers
• OpenSea announced support for Solana NFTs