Bitmine Immersion Technologies, holding one of the largest Ether (ETH) stockpiles as part of its treasury strategy, said Monday it added of $74 million worth of the second-biggest crypto by market cap, in contrast with Strategy, a major Bitcoin (BTC) holder, which offloaded coins to fund its dividend payments.

Bitmine said that it held 5,742,237 ETH as of Sunday, marking an increase of 42,197 Ether since it reported on its holdings last week. The ETH holdings were reported when the token was valued at about $1,759, making its most recent buys worth about $74 million. The price of ETH has since increased to $1,792 apiece at the time of publication.

Bitmine chair Tom Lee said optimism about the passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act in the US was an “important milestone” that could allow “smart contract platforms like ethereum to benefit” among the company’s reasons for maintaining its treasury strategy, adding:

“[T]he rise in the ETH/BTC ratio in the past few days make sense as markets start to see greater chances of Clarity Act passage.”

Prediction market traders see about a 48% chance for passage of the Clarity Act by year end. Source: Polymarket

The latest buy means Bitmine holds about 4.8% of the token’s total supply, or roughly 121 million ETH. Strategy on Monday reported selling $216 million worth of BTC to fund its dividend payments, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 Bitcoin.

Related: Bitcoin nears $63.5K into weekly close as trader warns of ‘terrible’ Monday

Market structure bill awaiting Senate approval

The CLARITY Act, under consideration in the US Senate, is expected to be one of the most significant pieces of legislation affecting the crypto industry, giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission more authority in regulating and overseeing digital assets. 

Republican lawmakers are pushing for a vote on the bill once the chamber returns from their state work periods next week, but it’s unclear whether enough Democrats will sign onto the legislation without clear provisions on ethics. The CLARITY ACT will need 60 votes to pass in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim majority.

Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Bitcoin BTC$63,518.86 is trading at $62,800 on Monday, a notable turnaround from July 1 when it dipped below $58,000 to its lowest level since September 2024 and raised concerns of a slide toward $50,000.

Ether (ETH) staged a similar recovery, trading at $1,760 after bottoming out around $1,550 last week. The two largest cryptocurrencies spiked higher at Sunday’s futures open, but have given back around 1% of those gains since midnight UTC.

The pullback represents a divergence from traditional markets, where Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 index futures are trading up 1% and 0.5%, respectively, following the long weekend.

The altcoin market is split. Lighter (LIT) continues to impress, now up more than 50% over the past week, while MORPHO$1.9994 and ADA$0.1833 are both nursing losses of around 4% in the past 24 hours.

Derivatives positioning

• The futures market is steady, with open interest in bitcoin BTC$63,518.86, ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) largely unchanged over the past 24 hours, likely due to the extended U.S. weekend.
• Open interest in LTC$45.13 has jumped to 7.14 million tokens, the most since May 12. It is unclear whether the capital inflow is bullish or bearish. Key indicators are sending mixed signals: Positive funding rates point to bullish sentiment, yet the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) has turned negative, indicating sellers have been more aggressive by hitting market orders rather than posting passive limit orders.
• Open interest in Lighter DEX’s LIT token is also rising, reaching one-month highs as the bullish tokenomics overhaul supports its price.
• Bitcoin’s and ether’s 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, remain under pressure after double-digit weekly declines, reflecting continued supply of options. This points to expectations of calmer market conditions, which often accompany price upswings.
• Still, on Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, signaling persistent downside concerns — although the gap has narrowed since early last month.
• Volumes show no clear bias, as BTC’s $60K put and $70K call rank among the most traded strikes over the past 24 hours.

Token talk

• Lighter’s (LIT) barnstorming rally of late continued on Monday, adding 5% since midnight UTC and taking its 24-hour gain to 13.5%, building on momentum as traders look for the next hyperliquid (HYPE).
• LIT is the native token of its namesake decentralized derivatives exchange, which has racked up $40 billion in trading volume over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama.
• It was also a strong start to the week for PYTH, up by 6% since midnight UTC as traders rotate bitcoin gains into more speculative altcoin bets.
• CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season indicator ticked up to 52/100 on Monday, the highest level in the past three months, suggesting optimism is returning to the altcoin sector.
• However, that indicator is lagging as a result of poor performance from a portion of the market including JITO, BEAT and STABLE, each having lost between 5% and 13% over the past week with further losses on Monday.

MicroStrategy’s long-time Bitcoin proxy, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy Incorporated), has again sold a portion of its holdings to fund corporate needs. In a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, the company said it sold 3,588 Bitcoin for a total of $216 million, trimming its position to 843,775 BTC.

The disclosed sales were completed across multiple days and were priced at two different average levels: Strategy sold 1,363 BTC at an average of $59,256 between last Monday and Tuesday, and 2,225 BTC at an average of $60,773 between Wednesday and Sunday, according to the filing.

Key takeaways

• Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for $216 million, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 BTC, per its Monday SEC 8-K.
• The sales come after Strategy previously reported its first Bitcoin sale in years in early June, following a 2022 tax-related transaction.
• Strategy’s June capital framework ties Bitcoin sales to dividend funding, and it raised its STRC preferred stock dividend rate to 12%.
• Analyst Bernstein said Strategy was unlikely to face forced Bitcoin selling, citing cash coverage for dividend and interest obligations.

Another tranche of Bitcoin sold to support dividends

Strategy’s Monday filing provides the clearest breakdown yet of how its Bitcoin-to-cash conversion is being executed in practice. The company emphasized the total proceeds ($216 million) and the reduced Bitcoin balance that results from the transactions.

While the sale is large in absolute terms, investors have been watching Strategy closely for signals about whether it is merely funding planned payments or shifting toward more sustained liquidation. This latest disclosure follows an earlier, notable break from the company’s long-standing pattern: Strategy had disclosed the sale of 32 BTC in early June, described as its first reported Bitcoin sale since the 2022 tax-loss-related transaction.

That early June disclosure matters because it set expectations that Strategy’s “Bitcoin as reserve” thesis was evolving into a more explicitly managed cash-and-liquidity approach—one that includes periodically monetizing part of its holdings to meet obligations.

June framework links Bitcoin liquidity to capital returns

In its June 29 8-K, Strategy unveiled a capital framework designed to preserve Bitcoin exposure while allowing certain sales to fund dividends. As reported earlier by Cointelegraph, that framework laid out how Bitcoin could be sold to support shareholder returns without abandoning the larger accumulation strategy.

Within that framework, Strategy increased the annual dividend rate on its STRC perpetual preferred stock to 12%. It also disclosed that its U.S. dollar reserve had grown to $2.55 billion in the June filing. Monday’s 8-K, however, indicated that the dollar reserve remained unchanged from the prior disclosure.

In other words, the company used Bitcoin sales even as it reported a stable level of cash reserves—suggesting that the sales are part of the structured dividend-funding mechanism rather than a sign of immediate liquidity stress.

STRC trades below par, raising questions for funding dynamics

Strategy’s dividend funding is closely connected to how STRC performs in the market. During Monday’s pre-market session, STRC traded at $88.70, according to Yahoo Finance data—about 11.3% below its intended $100 par value.

This discount matters because it can affect Strategy’s financing flexibility. If STRC trades below par, the company’s ability to raise additional cash through STRC sales may be less efficient, potentially increasing pressure to keep dividend economics attractive to investors or, alternatively, to rely more on Bitcoin sales to cover obligations.

That dynamic is not speculative in the filing narrative: STRC is described as a key mechanism through which Strategy funds its Bitcoin accumulation and associated capital needs. When preferred shares price-discover below par, the trade-off between issuing equity-like instruments and selling Bitcoin becomes a central variable for investors monitoring Strategy’s capital strategy.

Bernstein: no “forced selling” scenario based on cash coverage

Ahead of the latest sale being disclosed, Bernstein argued that Strategy was unlikely to be compelled into selling Bitcoin. The firm pointed to liquidity and cash reserve coverage supporting dividend and interest obligations.

In the Bernstein report referenced in the article, the analyst estimated Strategy had 17 months of cash available to cover dividend obligations and interest payments. Bernstein also described Strategy as a net buyer of Bitcoin and characterized it as a “balancing force” in a market where other participants—particularly leading U.S. Bitcoin miners—have shifted toward selling rather than accumulating, partly due to their pivot to AI-related strategies.

Bernstein further cited broader market flows, including $5.5 billion of outflows from Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) so far in 2026, and suggested Strategy’s buying helped counteract that pressure. The firm also said Strategy’s debt liabilities were about 13% of its Bitcoin collateral value, implying that debt servicing constraints were not dominating the company’s near-term behavior.

According to Bernstein, Strategy’s next principal payment of roughly $1 billion is due in the third quarter of 2028. The timeline is important for investors because it shapes how much of today’s liquidity decisions are about “imminent refinancing needs” versus routine dividend management.

Bernstein maintained a $150,000 year-end Bitcoin price target and reiterated that its long-term outlook on Bitcoin remained optimistic.

What to watch after Strategy’s latest disclosure

Investors will likely focus on whether these Bitcoin sales remain tied to the dividend framework and preferred-stock mechanics, or whether future filings show a larger and more frequent monetization of holdings. The next clue will come from how STRC continues trading relative to par and how Strategy reports its cash reserves and obligations over the coming quarters.

“That’s when the deflationary impulse from falling oil prices should remind everyone that the Fed isn’t going to hike and that – if anything – the next move will be a cut,” Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, said in a report.

If the currency’s strength is under question, then the barrier to bitcoin rising further also looks weaker. The two are known to be inversely correlated.

Some observers, however, are calling for caution, saying the market is overestimating the impact of oil prices on inflation. Elevated price pressures, they say, are now a structural issue.

“The Fed can’t declare victory simply because gasoline prices move lower. Sticky service-sector inflation is exactly why policymakers are likely to keep rates higher for longer, even if headline CPI continues moderating,” YCC Macro said on X.

Markets betting on aggressive easing may be underestimating how persistent underlying inflation really is,” YCC Macro added. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

What’s trending

Quick Overview

• Broadcom secured a contract extension with Apple for custom chip production lasting through 2031, reinforcing investor optimism
• Chip sector stocks experienced a strong recovery, with notable gains across AMD, Broadcom, and Micron
• SpaceX prepares for Nasdaq-100 inclusion, attracting significant institutional and index fund interest
• TeraWulf announced a massive $19 billion, two-decade AI data center agreement with Anthropic
• Strategy maintained market attention as a leading corporate Bitcoin holder

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A wave of significant corporate developments swept through markets today, headlined by Broadcom’s extended Apple collaboration, a semiconductor sector recovery, SpaceX’s upcoming index milestone, TeraWulf’s blockbuster AI contract, and Strategy’s continued cryptocurrency focus.

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Broadcom Secures Long-Term Apple Chip Supply Agreement

Broadcom experienced significant stock appreciation following confirmation that its custom semiconductor partnership with Apple will continue through 2031.

This extension solidifies Broadcom’s standing as a critical supplier within Apple’s semiconductor ecosystem. The arrangement provides enhanced revenue predictability for the coming years.

Broadcom delivers specialized silicon components, networking infrastructure, and wireless connectivity technologies essential for modern data center operations. This collaboration strengthens its foothold in the expanding AI infrastructure landscape.

Market participants typically respond favorably to long-duration contract announcements, and Monday’s trading activity reflected that sentiment.

Chip Sector Experiences Strong Recovery

Chipmakers powered the market higher during Monday’s session as capital flowed back into artificial intelligence-focused semiconductor companies following last week’s downturn.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index registered substantial gains. Companies including AMD, Micron, and Broadcom delivered impressive performances.

Market observers largely interpreted the previous week’s decline as a temporary consolidation rather than the beginning of a sustained downtrend. Ongoing AI infrastructure investments from cloud computing giants and corporate customers continue supporting sector growth.

The robust comeback indicates market confidence that the AI-driven investment wave will maintain momentum throughout 2026.

SpaceX Approaches Nasdaq-100 Membership

SpaceX is on track to enter the Nasdaq-100 Index, a development anticipated to generate substantial demand from passive investment vehicles.

The addition comes after the company’s transition to public markets and represents another milestone in its financial evolution. Membership in this prominent technology benchmark will introduce the stock to a significantly broader base of institutional capital.

Market watchers are particularly interested in SpaceX’s diversified revenue streams, encompassing Starlink satellite internet services, government defense partnerships, and ongoing Starship rocket advancement.

The enterprise is frequently identified as among the most compelling long-term growth opportunities within the commercial aerospace sector.

TeraWulf Announces Historic AI Infrastructure Partnership

TeraWulf emerged as a major market mover following disclosure of a 20-year, $19 billion arrangement to provide AI computing infrastructure capacity to Anthropic.

Originally focused on cryptocurrency mining operations, the company has strategically repositioned toward high-performance computing solutions for artificial intelligence applications.

This agreement exemplifies the broader industry shift as energy and computing providers reorient to capture explosive AI infrastructure demand. TeraWulf shares surged dramatically as market participants valued the extended revenue visibility.

The partnership ranks among the most substantial AI infrastructure commitments announced by an independent supplier in the market.

Strategy Maintains Bitcoin Market Prominence

Strategy remained in investor focus as a major publicly-traded Bitcoin accumulator.

The company’s equity performance demonstrates strong correlation with Bitcoin price movements, positioning it as a preferred vehicle for traditional investors seeking amplified cryptocurrency exposure through conventional equity markets.

Ongoing announcements regarding its funding approach and Bitcoin acquisition activity have sustained elevated market interest.

Given continued cryptocurrency market volatility, investors are closely monitoring the company’s capital allocation decisions and their implications for long-term shareholder value creation.

Interestingly, after a series of buys and sales over the past few weeks, the company is left with a net increase of only 69 bitcoin despite deploying roughly $20 million in additional capital, a crypto trader, KALEO, said on X. Because the company sold coins below the prices it had recently paid, the implied average cost of those additional holdings exceeded $289,000 per bitcoin, KALEO added.

Strategy now holds 843,775 bitcoin purchased at an average price of $75,476, maintaining its position as the largest publicly traded corporate holder of the cryptocurrency.

Despite the losses, today’s move to sell millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin will likely signal to investors that Strategy will go to whatever lengths necessary to protect its dividends on its high-yielding preferred stock, Stretch (STRC), whose dividend now stands at 12% after a recent 50 basis-point increase.

Indeed, while bitcoin and Strategy’s common stock, MSTR, are lower on Monday, STRC continues to rebound from last week’s low below $75, rising another 2.1% to just shy of $90.

The ‘strategy’

Given the zigzags in strategy over the past few weeks, the company’s near-term capital allocation has become harder for investors to predict. Assuming relatively stable prices for BTC, MSTR, and STRC, it’s probably safe to say that bitcoin buys are off the table for the foreseeable future.