Bitcoin fell below $62,000 on Thursday as Michael Saylor, Strategy’s Executive Chairman, attributed the decline to capital flowing into AI infrastructure rather than deteriorating Bitcoin fundamentals.
The largest corporate Bitcoin holder sold 32 bitcoin between May 26 and May 31, disclosing the transaction in a Form 8-K filing on June 1. Strategy received $2.5 million in net proceeds at an average price of $77,135 per coin, reducing its holdings to 843,706 BTC worth approximately $61 billion.
The sale marked Strategy’s first bitcoin disposition since late 2022, breaking a streak that had become a market signal of unwavering conviction. Saylor responded on X with a thesis framing the broader selloff as temporary reallocation rather than fundamental weakness.
“Capital markets are funding the AI buildout at historic scale: ~$400B over 6 months,” Saylor wrote. “Bitcoin ETFs have seen ~$4B of outflows since May 14, pressuring BTC. This is a capital rotation, not a Bitcoin impairment. Volatility creates opportunity.”
Bitcoin dropped 7% in 24 hours and 14% over the past week, touching $61,400 overnight before recovering to $62,400 in premarket trading Thursday. The decline pushed Bitcoin into a technical bear market, down 22.7% from its four-week high. The broader crypto market shed $600 billion in value. Strategy’s stock fell 15% over five trading days.
The timing of Strategy’s sale underscores the tension in Saylor’s narrative. The company had shifted focus from accumulation to balance-sheet strengthening approximately two weeks before the bitcoin sale, completing a $1.5 billion convertible debt buyback at an 8% discount. That transaction reduced Strategy’s convertible debt from $8.2 billion to $6.7 billion and freed $120 million in annual debt obligations, while the company maintained $871 million in cash reserves.
Saylor’s framing aligns with Wall Street consensus on capital deployment. Hyperscalers plan combined capital expenditures of $600 billion for 2026, with AI hardware, servers, and networking gear accounting for roughly $450 billion of that total, according to analyst firm CreditSights.
The market’s reception of Strategy’s sale diverged sharply from Saylor’s interpretation. Analysts cited the transaction as a break in character that deepened bearish sentiment and accelerated price decline, contradicting Saylor’s thesis that fundamentals remain intact. The sale raised questions about conviction among the world’s most prominent corporate Bitcoin holder at a moment when institutional Bitcoin ETFs faced sustained outflows.
Strategy did not specify plans for additional bitcoin sales or clarify the reasoning behind the disposition if the capital rotation thesis holds true. The company indicated it planned to rebuild its liquidity buffer through future capital raises.
