Bitcoin Slips Into Technical Bear Market; Strategy (MSTR) Slides 15% in Five Sessions
Bitcoin fell sharply overnight and is now down 22.7% from a near four-week high, meeting the definition of a technical bear market, CoinDesk reported. The token briefly touched $61,400 before rebounding to around $62,400.
The move has weighed on Strategy's shares, which have dropped nearly 15% over the past five trading days. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said on X that roughly $40 billion has flowed into AI infrastructure via capital markets over the last six months, while spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen cumulative outflows of about $4 billion since May 14. He described the pullback as a temporary capital rotation, not a deterioration in confidence in Bitcoin.
The report cited Wall Street expectations that major cloud providers' 2026 capital spending could exceed $600 billion, with about $450 billion earmarked for AI hardware, servers and networking. Saylor argued that institutional money is currently favoring AI-linked projects, pressuring Bitcoin ETF demand.
Bitcoin is down about 7% over the past 24 hours and more than 14% over the last week. The slide has wiped more than $600 billion from total cryptocurrency market capitalization, the report said.
Investors are also focused on Strategy's uncommon move to trim its Bitcoin position. In an 8-K filed June 1, the company said it sold 32 bitcoins between May 26 and 31 at an average price of $77,135 each, generating about $2.5 million in net proceeds after fees. Strategy said the cash will be used to pay dividends on its STRC preferred shares.
While the sale was small, it was Strategy's first Bitcoin sale since late 2022, a development markets treated as a sensitive signal. As of the disclosure date, the company still held 843,706 bitcoins, worth roughly $61 billion based on the figures cited, keeping it among the largest bitcoin-holding public companies globally.
A week before the sale, Strategy reshaped its financing. The company repurchased $1.5 billion principal amount of 0% convertible notes due 2029, paying about $1.38 billion in cash. It said the deal lowered its debt burden by about $120 million, reducing outstanding convertible notes from $8.2 billion to $6.7 billion. After the repurchase, Strategy reported roughly $871 million in cash on its balance sheet.
CoinDesk noted that while Saylor framed Bitcoin's decline as AI-driven fund rotation, even a modest sale by Strategy during a downturn was enough to intensify scrutiny of any potential shift in the firm's holding strategy.
