Bitcoin touches $50,000 as MicroStrategy Readies Next Bitcoin Buy

Bitcoin’s price traded over $50,000 during the Tuesday trading day after a volatile weekend.  Bitcoin had gotten a boost over the last week with a flurry of announcements of institutional adoption of digital assets, from legacy banks to Uber. MicroStrategy which […]

article-image
share

key takeaways

  • Bitcoin briefly topped $50,000 before retreating
  • Exchanges report declining levels of digital asset holdings

Bitcoin’s price traded over $50,000 during the Tuesday trading day after a volatile weekend. 

Bitcoin had gotten a boost over the last week with a flurry of announcements of institutional adoption of digital assets, from legacy banks to Uber. MicroStrategy which holds nearly $3.5 billion in bitcoin, is planning an offering of $600 Million in convertible senior notes to finance another bitcoin purchase pushed up prices to just shy of $50,000 Tuesday morning. 

Terms of MicroStrategy’s proposed note offering have not been confirmed, however, the company’s last note offering from December to fund a bitcoin buy paid out 0.75 percent interest. 

Declines in bitcoin reserves on exchanges

Data from Glassnode shows declining bitcoin reserves on most exchanges as traders choose to hold their digital assets instead of actively trading them. In contrast during the 2017 bull market, supply on exchanges increased alongside a rise in the asset’s price. 

Source: Glassnode

One of the key differences, however, between the 2017 rally and the current bull market is the maturity of the credit ecosystem. Many holders of bitcoin are keeping their assets in crypto savings accounts like BlockFi, which currently pays 6 percent APY on bitcoin deposits, or getting loans denominated in other assets like ethereum collateralized by their bitcoin to invest in Decentralized Finance tokens. DeFi Pulse reports that the total value locked in the ecosystem has surpassed $40 billion. 

Bloomberg analyst: Supply, volatility give bitcoin edge over equities

In a note sent out Tuesday morning, Mike McGlone, a Bloomberg analyst, wrote that bitcoin’s volatility is now tracking major stock indexes and is a sign of “the rapid maturation of the nascent digital version of gold.”

“Annual volatility on Bitcoin recovering from the lowest ever versus the S&P 500 Index indicates the Bitcoin-to-S&P 500 price ratio has plenty of potential to extend above the old 7x peak, if history is a guide,” he wrote. “The previous low in Bitcoin 260-day volatility relative to the stock index was about 2.6x in 2016, when the Bitcoin-to-S&P 500 ratio was around 0.2x. In 2017, the price ratio topped 7x, roughly coincident with volatility peaking just above 13x”

McGlone believes this is indicative of its price resuming an upwards trajectory compared to equities prices. 

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

REPORT_Template.png

Research

The Sonic blockchain is leveraging redesigned airdrop incentives and its FeeM program to propel DeFi activity and attract institutional capital, setting the stage for ecosystem growth. Within this environment, leading protocols Shadow Exchange and Silo are poised to asymmetrically benefit due to innovative features and favorable valuations, despite facing ecosystem dependency and competitive pressures. This positions them as compelling, potentially shorter-term, investment opportunities contingent on Sonic's sustained success.

article-image

Bitcoin needs a price, but its magic runs deeper

article-image

Circle had a pretty successful first day of trading, but what’s next for the stablecoin issuer?

article-image

Solana’s USDC caught a boost after being paired with the TRUMP memecoin

article-image

The stablecoin issuer’s successful first day of trading is likely to spur more crypto IPOs, industry watchers say

article-image

Job openings rallied and continuing claims stalled ahead of May’s employment report

article-image

A group of Twitch streamers battle for bitcoin. Will their chats help them?