Morning Update: Saylor's Record Bitcoin Acquisition Boosts BTC Confidence

Tyler Warner pens Morning Minute, offering daily insights. The views expressed are personal and may not align with those of Decrypt. For a quick rundown on top stories in under five minutes, check our new daily news show available on Apple Podcast or Spotify.

Last week, Saylor’s Strategy made headlines by acquiring 34,164 BTC for $2.54 billion, marking its most significant weekly purchase over the past year and a half. This acquisition ranks as the third largest in the company’s history, following two purchases in November 2024.

Currently, Saylor’s Strategy boasts 815,061 BTC, bought at an average price of $75,527, totaling $61.56 billion. With Bitcoin prices hovering around $76K, the entire Bitcoin portfolio is now profitable.

The transaction was largely funded through STRC preferred stock sales, amounting to $2.18 billion out of the total $2.54 billion. Additionally, Saylor proposed changing STRC dividends to a semi-monthly schedule this week.

Saylor’s strategy aims for a more stable STRC price to enhance issuance capacity and facilitate further Bitcoin acquisitions. With 15% progress in his latest $50B ATM, significant future purchases are anticipated.

Bitmine disclosed on Monday that it acquired 101,627 ETH for $235 million last week, marking its most substantial weekly Ethereum purchase of 2026. On a market cap adjusted basis, this purchase equates to Saylor’s acquisition of $1.35 billion in Bitcoin, underscoring its magnitude.

Bitmine’s total Ethereum holdings now stand at 4.976 million ETH, which is 4.12% of the circulating supply and places it 82% toward achieving a “5% alchemy” target.

Tom Lee commented, “Despite widespread belief that the crypto winter may extend into fall 2026, we believe it’s nearing its end.” He pointed to Ethereum’s 41% rise from its February lows as evidence, describing it as “the best wartime store of value,” benefiting from institutional tokenization and AI demand for a public ledger.

Meanwhile, Polymarket is reportedly in discussions to raise $400 million at a $15 billion valuation, per Bloomberg and The Information. This round could expand to $1 billion with additional strategic investors beyond NYSE parent ICE’s recent $600M contribution, totaling its commitment to $1.6 billion.

Kalshi recently secured $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation, surpassing Polymarket’s metrics ($13B in volume and estimated $1.5B annual revenue) for the first time. Kalshi’s regulated status in the US is likely a key differentiator compared to Polymarket’s pending U.S. launch.

Aave released its full incident report on Monday, revealing that losses could range from $120M to $230M. An attacker exploited Kelp by forging a LayerZero packet (nonce 308), which was accepted without a corresponding burn on Unichain, releasing 116,500 rsETH. Of this, 89,567 ended up as collateral across seven wallets on Aave, borrowing 82,650 WETH and 821 wstETH against it.

The current challenge is that the adapter backing all remote-chain rsETH holds only 40,373 rsETH against total claims of 152,577, creating a 112,204 rsETH gap. The extent of losses for Aave hinges on Kelp’s decision: if losses are distributed across all rsETH holders, the token depegs by about 15% with Aave absorbing $124M in bad debt; if isolated to affected L2 chains, Aave could face approximately $230M in losses.

While Aave evaluates scenarios, it awaits Kelp’s decision. Consequently, confidence in these protocols appears to be waning.

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