| GM. This is The Crossover. |
| The biggest bitcoin buyers of the year spent last week doing something else, and today America elects the Congress that writes crypto’s rules. |
Strategy bought more of its own stock than bitcoin
Michael Saylor's Strategy said on Monday it bought 811 bitcoin for $65.5 million in the week to November 1. It also spent $208.2 million buying back STRC, one of the preferred shares it sells to raise the money it buys bitcoin with. It now holds 849,327 bitcoin and $4.9 billion of dollar assets.
That is three dollars on its own stock for every dollar on coins. STRC pays a cash dividend and is built to trade near $100.
Traders on Polymarket, the prediction market, put the chance of STRC getting back there by the end of November at 71%. Strategy raises its bitcoin money by selling that stock. If STRC slips, the money stops, so last week the company defended the stock first.
The funds that set the price through October stepped back the same week. The US spot bitcoin funds paid out $643.2 million on Friday and $398.6 million on Monday, just over a billion dollars in two sessions.
Monday's selling came from one fund. BlackRock's paid out $405.3 million while Fidelity's took in $6.7 million. The ether funds paid out $139.7 million on Monday, their sixth session of selling in a row.
So who is still buying? Paolo Ardoino, Tether's chief executive, said in Lugano on Monday that the stablecoin issuer owns about 150,000 bitcoin.
Glassnode, the data firm, counts about $37 billion of futures bets still open after Thursday's slide. The people betting on a rise are still paying to stay in. Nobody has forced those bets to close yet, so the selling that took bitcoin under $80,000 may not be finished.
Bitcoin is $76,847, its fifth daily reading under $80,000. If you hold it, the company that bought all year chose its own stock last week and the funds sold for two sessions, with the borrowed-money bets still open. Whether the funds come back is what we're watching, starting with tonight's Farside figure.
New Jersey dropped its three-year Coinbase staking ban
New Jersey's securities regulator withdrew its 2023 order against Coinbase on October 30, wiping out a $5 million penalty and the ban on residents staking new funds there. It withdrew the order without prejudice, meaning it can bring a new case, but Coinbase says New Jersey customers get staking back "very soon." Its staking revenue fell 54% last quarter.
The same day, the SEC's staff published answers on when people who vote with their tokens count as a "central party," the group whose control can make a token a security. The staff put independent voters outside that group and put anyone who coordinates to control a network, or can change it alone, inside it.
If you stake on Coinbase from New Jersey, the button comes back. If you hold a governance token, the SEC has now said in writing that voting with it isn't the same as running the thing.
European institution hid a $133 million theft, ZachXBT says
ZachXBT, the on-chain investigator, said this morning that a large Western European financial institution lost more than $133 million from its exchange accounts and is covering it up. He says it isn't North Korea and hasn't named the victim or the exchanges.
Exchanges could have frozen about $30 million of it, he says, if the victim had spoken up at the time. The wallet traders cheered on Sunday as a whale buying the ether dip was, he says, moving about $63 million of the stolen money.
Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil's largest exchange, confirmed an attack on Monday and paused withdrawals. The security firm Hypernative estimates more than $40 million left, and Tether froze 4.5 million USDT. It says customers lost nothing.
If your coins sit on an exchange, that is two more thefts in the week after Binance. The victim that stayed quiet lost $30 million the exchanges could have frozen.
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⚖️ The Odds
Live prices from prediction markets, where real money is staked on real outcomes.
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🔭 What to Watch
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📈 The Tape
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In Pro today US bitcoin funds have started selling On Friday the US spot bitcoin funds paid out $643.2 million, their biggest session since June. On Monday they paid out again, and the two sessions together come to just over a billion dollars. Bitcoin reads $76,688 this morning. We set a test on Friday. If the funds lost more than $400 million between then and this Thursday with bitcoin under $78,000, the May pattern had begun. They have lost more than twice that in two sessions, and bitcoin is under the line. By the test we wrote, it has begun. Most readers will have expected the funds to buy this dip. They bought the last one: after the two heavy sessions on 22 and 23 October they took money in on the next four, through the Fed's hold and the inflation report, and the price held. Thursday's hack looked like one more hour of forced selling for them to buy into. Our record puts the size of these two sessions somewhere else. Since the record began in April the funds had paid out a billion dollars in two sessions only inside the May and June fall: twice while the fall was still running, and once at its end. No pair of sessions from July to October came close, and the October pair the funds then bought into was a good deal smaller. Two of those three times, bitcoin was lower a fortnight later, once by nearly a fifth. The third time the pair marked the bottom and the price rose. So a billion-dollar pair has usually meant more selling, and once it marked the end. Whether this is 22 October or 18 May is the question, and the record answers it with something to watch rather than a count.
The rest of this one is for Pro readers. It picks up where this stops. |
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Tonight we find out who runs the Senate, and whether the funds sold for a third session.
TC
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| This is The Crossover. We can tell you what Saylor bought last week; what you buy this week is entirely your call. We’re analysts, not a preferred-stock desk, and nobody pays us a monthly dividend. |
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