Saylor's Strategy sold bitcoin for the first time since 2022. These firms are still buying

Strategy sold bitcoin for the first time since December 2022, offloading about $2.5 million of BTC and signaling a break in the accumulation trade that helped define digital asset treasuries. While a few firms such as Bitmine, Bit Digital, Strive, Metaplanet, and Hyperliquid Strategies are still buying, most peers have halted purchases or become sellers as crypto prices weakened and many treasury stocks fell sharply. Strategy still bought more than 25,000 BTC for over $2 billion through May, but the broader treasury model is under clear pressure.

Analysis

The key second-order signal is not the single MSTR sale; it is the collapse of the marginal buyer cohort that previously supported the entire treasury complex. Once treasury stocks trade below NAV, the structure flips from reflexive capital formation to forced de-risking: lower equity currency value kills issuance capacity, which then reduces incremental crypto demand and weakens the “scarcity bid” for the underlying tokens. That feedback loop matters more over the next 1-3 months than any one company’s directional choice.

Relative winners are the still-active accumulators, but only if they have balance-sheet flexibility and a clearly differentiated asset. BMNR and ASST can keep generating headline demand, yet their continued buying may increasingly function as a liquidity sink rather than a value-accretive treasury strategy if the market stops rewarding them with a premium. The cleaner expression of this theme is likely not long the buyers, but short the legacy treasury wrappers that depend on issuance, sentiment, and open-market mark-to-market premiums to survive.

The contrarian angle is that capitulation by the treasury cohort may actually be stabilizing for the underlying tokens over a medium horizon. If the weakest issuers stop buying, forced supply from treasury liquidation can fall faster than demand, especially for ETH where concentrated holders still have explicit accumulation targets. But that is a slower setup: near-term positioning remains fragile, and any further drawdown in crypto prices likely accelerates debt repayment sales and NAV compression across the group.

For microstructure, the message is bearish for the treasury equity basket and mildly constructive for spot liquidity in the most bought assets only after forced sellers are exhausted. The main catalyst to watch is whether a few remaining buyers slow purchases or announce financing constraints; that would confirm that treasury demand is no longer a stabilizer but an afterthought. Conversely, a sharp crypto rebound that restores NAV premiums could rapidly re-open the issuance flywheel, so this is a tactical short until proven otherwise, not a structural call for years.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Short MSTR on rallies over the next 2-4 weeks; use a stop if the stock regains a sustained NAV premium, since the trade thesis breaks if capital markets reopen to issuance.
• Short the weakest treasury names with recent selling or pivots, prioritizing GNS and ETHZ/VVPR; these have the highest probability of further dilution, forced sales, or business-model abandonment over 1-3 months.
• Pair trade: long BMNR vs short MSTR for a relative-value expression of active accumulation versus legacy premium compression; target 6-10% spread capture, with the risk that ETH beta overwhelms fundamentals in a sharp crypto rally.
• For higher-conviction but tighter-risk expression, buy 1-2 month put spreads on MSTR into any strength; the payoff improves if the market starts pricing a repeat of treasury liquidation elsewhere.
• Monitor ASST and BTBT only as momentum trades, not core longs; if they announce slowed purchases or financing friction, fade immediately because the market is likely to de-rate them faster than the underlying tokens.