Morning Minute: Saylor's Strategy Hoards Cash, Doesn't Buy BTC

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner . The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And c heck out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify. GM! Today’s top news: Crypto majors are mixed ahead CPI; BTC at $62.7k Saylor sells $467M in MSTR, doesn’t buy BTC ETFs flip to outflows as BTC ETFs see $425M exodus BTC and ETH social media posts fall to 6-year lows Jupiter announces new gacha platform powered by Collector Crypt (CARDS +20%) 🟠 Strategy Raises $467M and Skips Bitcoin for a Third Straight Week Strategy’s Bitcoin-buying machine stayed in neutral last week. The company raised $467M by issuing common stock and put all of it toward cash, lifting its USD Reserve to a record $3B. That means no Bitcoin purchase for the third week running. The raise added roughly 18% to Strategy’s cash reserves in one move, giving the company more than 20 months of coverage on its $1.76B in annual dividend and interest obligations. So the entirety of the week’s capital markets activity went toward fortifying the balance sheet’s cash cushion. Since its last Bitcoin purchase on June 22, Strategy has generated about $215M from selling Bitcoin, less than half of what this single stock issuance brought in. So the stock sales are now doing more work than the Bitcoin sales. Once again, Saylor is issuing common shares to fund dividend payments on his preferred stock. MSTR holders are being diluted to pay STRC holders. MSTR fell 4% Monday to around $90.80, down 18% on the month, though it has steadied since hitting a 28-month low of $81.81 in late June. STRC sits at $87.04, still below its $100 par value where it has lingered since mid-May while paying a 12% dividend. And with Bitcoin at $62,600 against an average cost of $75,476, the 843,775-coin stack is roughly $11B underwater. The biggest open question right now is—why isn’t he buying Bitcoin at these prices? Raising cash to alleviate market concerns and to fund future debt payments made sense when he was mostly depleted, but now Saylor is flush. He’s got 20 months' runway, and more importantly, he’s proven he can just dump MSTR shares whenever to raise cash. So why not buy BTC here 50% off ATH? Certainly any BTC buy in the low 60s makes more sense than buys in the 80s, 90s, or over 100k. So why aren’t they coming? And when will the next buys hit the tape? Hopefully we find out soon. Or Saylor will have some explaining to do… 🏛️ Democratic Opposition to the CLARITY Act Grows With Four Weeks Left Senate Democrats are hardening against the CLARITY Act, and Trump’s $1.2 billion crypto fortune is (unsurprisingly) the wedge. Elizabeth Warren wrote to Senate leadership on Monday , demanding the bill bar the president, vice president, senior officials, members of Congress, and their families from profiting off the crypto industry. Anything less would be a giveaway to the president and his family at the public’s expense, in her words. On Tuesday, more Senate Democrats including Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen are expected to hold a press conference against it, hitting both Trump’s crypto dealings and the argument that the bill weakens financial oversight built after the Great Depression. The vote math is the tricky part here. CLARITY needs 60 votes, which means at least seven Democrats have to cross over, and possibly more given the Republican bench is thinner than expected (Mitch McConnell remains hospitalized, and Lindsey Graham died suddenly over the weekend). Trump argued Monday that the Senate should pass CLARITY in Graham’s honor, calling him a big supporter of crypto legislation. Graham was never involved in the negotiations, rarely spoke on the topic, and was the only Senate Republican to co-sponsor a 2023 anti-money-laundering bill that crypto groups called deeply hostile to the industry. So where does this leave us? Less than four weeks remain before the August recess, and everyone involved agrees that missing it means the bill dies in the noise of the November midterms. The industry’s own forecasters have already marked it down, with Galaxy cutting its odds to 50% and prediction markets pricing it in the low 40s. The core problem is that the harder Democrats push for ethics language, the more they force Republicans to choose between passing the bill and protecting the president’s business interests. That’s a bad trade to have to make with a hard deadline bearing down. 🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets Crypto majors are mixed ahead of CPI; BTC even at $62.7k; ETH +1% at $1,795; SOL -1% at $75; HYPE -2% at $64 HASH (+11%) , INJ (+5%) and ENA (+5%) led top movers Oil +10% at $81; Gold -1% at $4,020 Stock futures are mixed as oil spikes and June CPI data comes this AM; DOW -0.7%, Nasdaq +0.3% June CEX volumes fell 5% from May , while derivatives trading rose by 4% BTC and ETH social media posts have fallen to their lowest level since 2020 Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong admitted Base "messed up" on content coins , saying they didn't work and that Base pivoted away early this year, with resources now going toward trading, payments, and AI agents BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan joined a 54-firm UK tokenization taskforce backed by the government , starting with tokenized repo, with a Treasury report projecting up to £33 billion in annual economic output by 2035 TeraWulf’s CEO said “not all megawatts are created equally” in the AI race , stating flatly that “we’re not involved in Bitcoin” anymore as its $19 billion Anthropic hosting deal completes its shift from miner to AI infrastructure company SBI Holdings’ blockchain initiative pivoted to Solana for tokenization and stablecoin issuance , moving off R3’s Corda and bringing the Solana Foundation into its joint venture, with plans including payment infrastructure for AI agents Corporate Treasuries & ETFs The Bitcoin ETFs saw $425M in net outflows on Monday, turning July negative; the ETH ETFs saw $15M in outflows Strategy raised $467M in a share sale and skipped a Bitcoin buy for a third straight week , lifting its cash reserve to a record $3B Tom Lee’s BitMine raised its Ethereum holdings to 5.77M ETH , about 4.8% of circulating supply, with nearly 5M of those staked. Meme Coin Tracker Meme leaders were mostly red down 1-2%; DOGE even, SHIB -2%, PEPE -1%, PENGU -4%, TRUMP -1%, BONK -2% Robinhood chain memes were led by Cashcat +8% to $180M, WOOD +70% to $15M, Wishbone +45% to $9M Febu (+60%), three (+100%) and Cards +20% were notable Solana movers 📈 Myriad Market of the Day  💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker Jupiter announced a new Pokemon and One Piece gacha platform powered by Collector Crypt (CARDS +28%) Pump.fun reported $5.9 million in weekly protocol fees , burning over $3M of $PUMP as buybacks now offset nearly 15% of total supply, with volumes holding steady despite the Robinhood Chain frenzy drawing traders away Robinhood Chain surged into the top five chains by DEX volume , posting $3.1 billion in the past week, per Bernstein, which holds an outperform rating and a $130 target on HOOD Binance US’s CEO said they are restarting growth after a 2-year regulatory hiatus 🚚 What is happening in NFTs? NFT leaders were mixed; Punks even at 32.4 ETH, BAYC +1% at 8.94 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 4.33 ETH; Hypurr’s -4% at 179 HYPE PXL NET (+60%) and Squiggles (+10%) led top movers New Robinhood NFT sets jumped including RH Miners (+1350%) and 8skullz (+340%) Daily Debrief Newsletter Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more. Your Email Get it! Get it!