Publicly listed companies bought only about 5,900 bitcoin over the past three months, less than 7% of what they purchased in July 2025 alone, and the corporate cohort as a whole is underwater at current prices, according to Glassnode’s latest Week Onchain report.
The on-chain analytics firm put the aggregate Corporate Treasury Cost Basis at $80,500, roughly 6% above spot. With bitcoin trading near $76,000 to $78,000 after a week of Fed and Bank of Japan rate hikes, the companies that drove much of 2025’s corporate demand are sitting on unrealized losses and have largely stopped adding.
Glassnode’s conclusion was blunt: “A buyer that has stopped buying and holds a paper loss is not support.” The firm noted bitcoin has tested the $80,500 corporate cost basis twice in 2026 and failed to hold above it both times. Until price reclaims that level, the cohort’s entry point acts as one more ceiling of overhead supply rather than a floor.
Strategy carries most of the buying
One company accounts for the bulk of recent accumulation. Strategy, the business intelligence firm formerly known as MicroStrategy, bought 4,603 BTC at the end of August, its first purchase in two months. That single buy represents roughly 78% of the entire 5,900 BTC corporate total for the period.
Strategy holds 845,050 BTC at a reported cost basis of $75,412 per coin, which sits below the broader corporate average. That leaves Strategy in profit while many later entrants are not. The companies that bought in 2025, when corporate purchases ran above 100,000 BTC in comparable three-month windows and bitcoin traded above $100,000, are the ones under water now.
The asymmetry matters for how the market behaves from here. Strategy’s low entry means it has no forced-seller pressure and can keep accumulating through drawdowns, as it did in August. The 2025-vintage buyers face the opposite setup: their average entry is above spot, they have already stopped buying, and Glassnode argues their holdings provide no demand support at current levels. A reclaim of $80,500 would flip that cohort back into profit and, in the firm’s framing, remove one layer of overhead supply.
| Metric | 2025 peak | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate buying, 3 months | 89,000+ BTC in July 2025 alone | About 5,900 BTC |
| Corporate cost basis | Below $100,000 spot | $80,500, ~6% above spot |
| Strategy holdings | Growing monthly | 845,050 BTC at $75,412 |
| US spot BTC ETFs, 5 days | ~$1 billion inflows early Sept. | $462.7 million outflows to Sept. 11 |
| Stablecoin market cap | April peak | ~$306 billion, ~4% below peak |
ETF flows and stablecoin supply add to the picture
Corporate treasuries are not the only demand signal weakening. US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $462.7 million in net outflows over the five trading days through September 11, reversing a three-week run of inflows. Glassnode described the ETF market as “a market in waiting,” with participants holding back rather than distributing aggressively.
Stablecoin liquidity, the raw fuel for crypto buying, has also stalled. Total stablecoin market capitalization stands near $306 billion, roughly flat over the week and about 4% below its April peak. “A breakout needs new dollars, and the supply has not made a new high in five months,” Glassnode wrote.
Bitcoin’s realized cap, the cumulative value of the supply at the price it last moved on-chain, recorded its first daily decline in 28 days on September 15, the day the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act. The metric sits near $1.069 trillion. “A return to positive daily Realized Cap changes would say the buyers are back; a run of outflows while price sits under the mean would mean the range’s buyers have started to give up,” the report stated.
Exchange balances tell a quieter story. Bitcoin held on exchanges keeps declining, with the 30-day exchange net position change still negative. Coins leaving exchanges is usually read as accumulation into cold storage or long-term wallets, which cuts against the bleakest reading of the demand data. The divergence between on-chain accumulation and flat ETF and treasury flows is the central tension in the current market.
Macro pressure stacked on weak demand
The demand slowdown has landed during a hostile macro stretch. The Federal Reserve raised rates 25 basis points on September 16, its first hike since 2023, and the median projection points to one more increase this year. The 10-year Treasury yield has pushed above 5%, and West Texas Intermediate crude approached $106 a barrel this week, a five-month high that keeps inflation concerns alive. The Bank of Japan followed with its own 25 basis point hike to 1.25% on September 18, the highest level since 1995.
Against that backdrop, bitcoin has held up better than most risk assets. It is down only about 1.5% in September, historically its weakest month, after gaining roughly 25% in August. Altcoins fell harder after the CLARITY Act vote, with the median top-100 token dropping about two percentage points more than bitcoin and the share of top-100 assets above their 20-day moving averages collapsing from 56% to 19% in one session, per Glassnode. Yet most top-100 assets remain above their 50-day moving averages, which the firm reads as a longer-term trend that has not broken.
Some analysts see the quiet as constructive. Sellers have exhausted themselves, the argument goes, and anyone who wanted to sell on the Fed hike or the CLARITY Act failure has already done so. The counterpoint from Glassnode’s data is simpler: the marginal buyers of 2025, corporate treasuries, are not coming back at these prices, and a market that has lost its most aggressive buyer needs a new one.
What would change the picture
Glassnode frames two triggers. A sustained reclaim of $80,500 would put the treasury cohort back in profit and remove a layer of supply overhang. A return to positive daily realized cap changes would signal fresh capital arriving rather than the current range-bound drift. Until either happens, the firm treats the market as one that is waiting, not one that is building a base for the next leg up.
The next test is legislative. A renewed push on the CLARITY Act, or further regulatory action from the SEC and CFTC following their tokenized-stock and wallet exemptions this week, could revive the demand story. Absent that, the arithmetic of who is left to buy matters more than any chart pattern. Right now the largest corporate buyer has slowed to a trickle, ETF flows have flipped negative, and the stablecoin base has not grown in five months. That is the demand picture bitcoin is carrying into October.