Buying billions in Bitcoin isn’t enough to shore up your company’s share prices anymore.
Strategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin and pioneer of the now-beleaguered treasury trade, announced on Tuesday it bought 22,305 Bitcoin worth more than $2.1 billion for its treasury. That brings its total holdings to 709,715 Bitcoin, worth nearly $70 billion.
But what constitutes the company’s fifth largest Bitcoin purchase still wasn’t enough to trigger its stock to surge.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Shares for Strategy dropped almost 8% on Tuesday and have lost 62% in the past six months, according to Yahoo Finance. Still, since Strategy adopted its Bitcoin treasury scheme in August 2020, the stock is up more than tenfold.
What happened in 2025?
One way to describe what was 2025’s defining narrative is distressed.
Last year, during the height of the digital asset treasury trade, companies were able to raise billions to buy up Bitcoin in hopes of propping up share prices — and beefing up balance sheets — but that business has dried up almost entirely.
Of the more than 200 treasuries tracked on BitcoinTreasuries.net, only six firms picked up Bitcoin last week, with one buying 20 Bitcoin and another a meager two coins. The other three purchased 200, 123, and 115 Bitcoin respectively.
The sixth, Strategy, led by Bitcoin permabull Michael Saylor, comprises around 90% of every week’s corporate crypto purchases.
Nearly 40% of the top 100 Bitcoin treasuries trade today at a discount, while more than 60% have purchased coins at higher prices than today.
Awkward timing
The timing is awkward for Saylor, who recently went on a podcast tirade defending the treasury model.
When interviewer Danny Knowles questioned whether the market can sustain more than 200 treasury companies, Saylor called it “an ignorant and offensive statement.”
“Who are you to say that they are just issuing debt to buy Bitcoin?” Saylor said, despite Strategy’s own filings showing that 99% of the firm’s Bitcoin-buying capital comes from issuing securities rather than operations.
Strategy didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Pedro Solimano is DL News’ markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.