Bitcoin has taken a big step lower this week, dropping sharply as bitcoin is left in the dust by this tiny cryptocurrency’s 1,000% price rally, with early adopters branding it like “bitcoin in 2013.”
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The bitcoin price, which had staged a brief recovery over $80,000 through May after its crash from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,000, has dropped back under the closely-watched level as Wall Street goes into “full panic mode.”
Now, as a legendary billionaire issues a stark warning that the U.S. dollar is teetering on the brink of collapse, Michael Saylor’s bitcoin acquisition company Strategy has confirmed it could be about to sell some of its $63 billion worth of bitcoin.
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Bitcoin treasury company pioneer Michael Saylor, the founder of Strategy, has raised the possibility of the company selling bitcoin, sparking bitcoin price crash fears.
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Strategy, which has sold huge amounts of debt and issued shares to fuel its bitcoin-buying spree since pivoting from software company to bitcoin company in 2020, said in a regulatory filing it will repurchase $1.5 billion worth of debt at a discount and listed bitcoin sales as a potential funding source.
“Strategy expects to fund the repurchases with available cash reserves, proceeds from sales of securities under its at-the-market offering program, and/or proceeds from the sale of bitcoin,” the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing read.
“The repurchases are expected to settle on or about May 19, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.”
Earlier this month, Saylor, one of the world’s biggest bitcoin bulls who has said he expects the bitcoin price to continue climbing forever, sparked fears of a bitcoin price and Strategy share price crash when he floated the possibility of selling some of Strategy’s bitcoin to meet dividend payment commitments.
“We will probably sell some bitcoin to pay a dividend just to inoculate the market and send the message that we did it,” Saylor said earlier this month during the company’s first quarter earnings call, adding the company’s plan was to, “buy bitcoin with credit … let it appreciate, and then … sell bitcoin to pay the dividend.”
Strategy has seen its share price collapse 60% since its summer 2025 peak, falling along with the bitcoin price as the company begins selling its controversial so-called Stretch shares, advertized as paying a monthly cash dividend of around 11%.
“We will sell bitcoin when it’s advantageous to the company,” Strategy chief executive Phong Le said on the same earnings call this month. “We’re not going to sit back and just say, ‘We’ll never sell the bitcoin.’ We want to be net aggregators of bitcoin—increasing our total bitcoin, but more importantly, increasing our bitcoin per share because we think that is what is going to be most accretive long term for Strategy.”
This week, Saylor called the plan “a big nothing burger from an economic point of view,” dismissing fears Strategy’s sale of bitcoin could trigger a bitcoin price crash.
“If we were to fund all of our dividends exclusively by selling bitcoin over the next year, we would buy 20 bitcoin for every one we sold,” Saylor told Coindesk.
However, Strategy’s aggressive bitcoin accumulation over the last few years has led to the company holding an outsized influence on the market.
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The bitcoin price has crashed from its all-time high of $126,000 per bitcoin, with fears swirling another bitcoin price crash could be around the corner.
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“Strategy continues to be the single most influential entity in the market and delivered a surprise on its earnings call last week, by detailing its capital markets strategy in greater depth,” Thomas Perfumo, chief economist at Kraken, said in emailed comments.
“Most notably this included the possibility of selling its Bitcoin to fund dividend obligations, also framed by Michael Saylor as a way to “inoculate” the market against future liquidity needs.”
Perfumo pointed to Strategy offloading bitcoin in late 2022, “when they sold about $12 million in bitcoin to harvest tax losses,” and the company’s price-to-NAV “scraping 2026 highs,” as opening the door to a potential sale.
“Strategy’s public position up to now has been to diamond-hand its bitcoin forever,” Lark Davis, bitcoin and crypto newsletter author, said in an emailed note.
“At the least, it’s an ideological pivot–from never sell to sell when advantageous–and we also end up in a situation where bitcoin is sold to pay dividends on a stock instrument that itself was sold in order to buy bitcoin.”
Others have raised the possibility of a full blown bitcoin price crash if Saylor were to begin selling bitcoin.
“Despite its positivity, Strategy’s accumulation of bitcoin has posed the single biggest corporate centralization risk to the top asset,” Shawn Young, chief analyst, at MEXC Research, said in emailed comments, adding he expects Saylor to begin selling bitcoin to offset the company’s debt obligations.
“As it stands, Strategy has enough holdings to trigger panic when it starts selling its bitcoin, a move that could significantly cause a price crash. While Strategy would not sell a lump sum in a short period, the uncertainty around its position may cause investors to rethink their loyalty to [bitcoin]. If the selloff is minimal, as the firm has done in the past, the market may price it in, but large, sustained sales might push bitcoin back to the sub $40,000 mark. With the Strategy bitcoin selloff still speculative, it could happen before the end of Q4, especially if bitcoin’s price fails to improve and the company’s funding model is negatively impacted.”