Corporate treasuries bought about 5,900 bitcoin over the past three months, a fraction of the more than 100,000 coins the same cohort added a year earlier, according to Glassnode data published Thursday. At spot near $76,400, the quarterly haul is worth roughly $451 million. The firm’s verdict: the corporate buyer that powered much of the 2024-25 bull market has stepped back.
One company accounts for most of what is left. Strategy (MSTR) added 4,603 BTC for about $370 million at an average price of $80,318, per The Motley Fool’s tracking. Strip that out and the rest of the corporate universe barely moved the needle.
How far buying has fallen
The comparison with 2025 is stark. Corporate treasuries added more than 100,000 BTC in the same three-month window last year, including 89,000 coins in July 2025 alone. The current quarter’s total comes to less than 7% of that single month.
| Period | Corporate BTC purchases | Approx. value |
|---|---|---|
| Jul-Sep 2025 | 100,000+ BTC (89,000 in July alone) | above $10 billion |
| Recent 3 months | about 5,900 BTC | about $451 million |
| Strategy alone, recent quarter | 4,603 BTC | $370 million |
The arithmetic explains the pullback. Glassnode puts the average corporate treasury cost basis near $80,500 per coin, about 6% above spot. The cohort as a whole is underwater, and a treasury model that depends on issuing equity or debt at premiums to buy coins stops working when the coins trade below the average entry.
“Corporate treasuries were a big buyer through 2025, and they have stepped back,” Glassnode said in the report.
The wider demand picture
Treasuries are not the only signal fading. Glassnode’s wider read shows stablecoin supply growth slowing, Coinbase purchase premiums staying flat, and US spot ETF flows mixed. Spot bitcoin ETFs shed another $520 million this week, extending a run of outflows that began after the Fed’s rate hike on Wednesday and the Senate’s failure to pass the CLARITY Act on Tuesday.
Ether and XRP ETFs posted outflows too, with ether funds shedding money for a third straight session even as the token itself rose. The pattern of funds losing money while prices stabilize suggests positioning cleanup rather than panic, but it does not add demand.
Against that backdrop, bitcoin has held above $76,000 and briefly topped $77,000 after the Bank of Japan’s rate decision on Friday. Monthly gains of 21% survive despite the flows. The market is standing on retail and residual demand while its institutional buyers sit on their hands.
Miners add their own supply pressure. Bitdeer reported quarterly revenue of $228.8 million, up 47%, with bitcoin output nearly quintupling, yet the company still posted a $92.3 million net loss and its shares fell 15% on the print. Public miners have been selling more of their production as margins compress, which means even steady hashprice conditions translate into coins hitting the market.
Why treasuries stopped
The treasury model has a mechanical problem when price falls below cost basis. Firms like Strategy raised capital by selling shares at premiums to net asset value and converted the proceeds into bitcoin. When the premium flips to a discount, diluting shareholders to buy more coins destroys value instead of creating it, so purchases slow by design.
Smaller treasuries face a harder version of the same problem. Many copied the model at the top of the market in 2025, bought between $90,000 and $110,000, and now carry losses of 20% or more. A few have disclosed debt service pressure, and the sector’s copycat phase is clearly over.
There are also macro reasons to wait. The Fed’s first hike in three years and the failure of the CLARITY Act removed the two most-cited near-term catalysts in a single week. A treasury committee deciding whether to add exposure in that environment has an easy answer, which is to wait.
The irony is that the cohort’s own success created the slowdown. Treasury buying was the marginal buyer that pushed prices through $100,000 last year, which is exactly what made the average entry expensive enough to leave the group underwater when the market corrected. The strategy worked until it priced itself out.
What would change the picture
The IBIT options expiry on Friday puts about 1.47 million contracts and $6.3 billion of positioning through the market, and the options tape has been one of the few sources of active positioning this week. Beyond that, a bitcoin price recovery through the $80,500 cost basis would restore the treasury arithmetic, since premiums to NAV tend to reopen when holdings are in profit.
Regulatory clarity is the other lever. The CLARITY Act failed by a 49-50 Senate vote, one short of the 60 needed, and the industry has already started planning around foreign jurisdictions. A revived bill, or SEC and CFTC rulemaking that fills the gap, would give treasuries the legal cover that many boards said they were waiting for.
JPMorgan’s research desk offered a partial counterweight this week, arguing that gold ETFs have recovered all of their 2026 outflows while bitcoin funds have recovered half, and that short interest in IBIT near a yearly high leaves room for upside if hedging cools. The bank’s analysts still see bitcoin ETFs gaining share as a hedge asset over time, though their own flows data argues that is not happening this month.
For now, the data supports the cautious read. The corporate bid that absorbed supply through 2025 is gone, ETF flows are negative, and price is holding on thinner demand. Glassnode’s numbers do not predict a crash. They describe a market waiting for a buyer to come back.