Today in crypto, Strategy’s Bitcoin paper loss tops $11 billion as Michael Saylor pointed to ETF outflows and AI infrastructure spending as factors pressuring BTC, Bitmine is launching a $300 million perpetual preferred stock offering, and more than 100 million agentic payments have been transacted on Base as AI-driven payment rails evolve beyond experimentation.
Saylor downplays Bitcoin slide as Strategy faces $11 billion paper loss
Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings fell deep into paper-loss territory as BTC traded below the company’s average purchase price, renewing scrutiny of Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury model.
Strategy holds 843,706 Bitcoin (BTC) acquired at an average price of $75,699 per coin, with a total cost basis of $63.8 billion. However, the latest Bitcoin downturn sank the value of Strategy’s Bitcoin reserve to $52.6 billion, pushing its unrealized loss to $11.2 billion, according to the company’s dashboard.
Strategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, STRC, has also declined below its intended $100 value and is traded at $94.6 at the time of writing. Strategy’s (MSTR) stock price was down 1.5% in pre-market trading to $124.7 on Thursday, Yahoo Finance data shows.
The paper loss adds to scrutiny of Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury model as BTC trades below the company’s average acquisition price, while the downturn in STRC price could complicate future preferred-stock issuance to fund its Bitcoin acquisitions. It comes days after Strategy announced the sale of 32 BTC, its first sale since 2022.
Saylor pushed back on the bearish read Thursday, saying that mounting exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows are “pressuring BTC,” and capital markets have poured $400 billion into AI infrastructure over the past six months.
“This is a capital rotation, not a Bitcoin impairment. Volatility creates opportunity,” said Saylor in an X post.
Source: Michael Saylor
Bitmine eyes dividend-paying preferred shares, echoing Strategy’s playbook
Ethereum treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies is launching a $300 million perpetual preferred stock offering, borrowing a page from Strategy’s financing playbook.
Bitmine told the SEC on Wednesday that it intends to offer 3 million of its 9.5% Series A perpetual preferred stock at $100 per share, which will trade under the symbol BMNP within 30 days of issuance.
Preferred shares are a hybrid of stocks and bonds. Investors are not directly betting on the company’s growth but lending it money in exchange for regular payments. For every $100 share, Bitmine will pay dividends on a weekly basis, amounting to $9.50 per year.
The firm plans to use income from its staked Ether (ETH) to pay the dividends, similar to offerings from Michael Saylor’s bitcoin treasury company, Strategy.
Bitmine’s annualized staking revenue by week. Source: SEC
Agentic payment activity tops 100 million transactions on Base
Agentic payment activity on Coinbase’s Base network has surpassed 100 million transactions, signaling that machine-to-machine payments are moving beyond the proof-of-concept stage in onchain environments.
According to a new Chainalysis report, wallets interacting with Coinbase’s x402 protocol generated more than 100 million transactions on Base within roughly nine months of launch.
The x402 protocol allows software agents to make onchain payments directly through web requests. When an agent requests access to a resource, such as a data feed or API, it can automatically complete a stablecoin payment without human authorization.
Much of x402’s early growth was driven by a memecoin experiment called PING, which required users to make a payment through the protocol to mint tokens. The project attracted large numbers of users looking to acquire the token, triggering a surge in transaction activity.
Cumulative agentic transfer volumes on Base. Source: Chainalysis
