2pm: Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor diluted MicroStrategy equity once again
MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 12,333 bitcoins at a net aggregate purchase amount of US$347 million, equating to US$28,136 per bitcoin, per Tuesday's quarterly update.
Total bitcoin holdings at the end of the second quarter were 152,333, obtained at a total cost of US$4.52 billion, averaging $29,668 per bitcoin.
At the time of writing, bitcoin was priced at US$29,524, meaning MicroStrategy would take a small writedown if it chose to liquidate all bitcoins at current spot prices.
To help pay for the group’s latest bitcoin haul, MicroStrategy issued US$335 million in new equity through an at-the-market offering
Cumulative equity issued since the third quarter of 2021 is now over US$1.7 billion at an average issuance price of $424 per share.
Microstrategy wrote down US$24 million in digital asset impairment charges for the quarter due to downward pressure on bitcoin’s spot price.
The remainder of the total US$132 million in expenses was divided between cost of revenues (US$26 million), sales and marketing (US$33 million), research and development (US$27 million and general and administrative (US$21 million).
As the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, MicroStrategy has been called a hybrid software company and proxy bitcoin fund, though the company’s shares have actually outperformed the world’s largest cryptocurrency since adopting its bitcoin strategy in August 2020.
Since then, MicroStrategy shares have increased around 250% while bitcoin has gained 150%.
Similar to bitcoin, MicroStrategy’s share price is currently around half its all-time high during the unprecedented crypto bull run of 2021.
9am: Bitcoin briefly touches 30k
Bitcoin managed to swing higher on Tuesday following bullish action at the US$29,500 support line.
The day ended with BTC/USDT 1.6% in the green at US$29,700, with a strong bout of volatility kicking in today.
Bitcoin actually managed to briefly reclaim the US$30,000 price point before being swiftly knocked back to US$29,595, where the BTC/UDST pair is changing hands at the time of writing.
Low exchange-traded volumes persist for the world’s largest cryptocurrency, and with little in the way of external catalysts, bitcoin may struggle to reclaim 30k for any sufficient amount of time, at least in the short term.
Bitcoin briefly hits 30k before being knocked back – Source: currency.com
The surprisingly high bout of recent volatility saw a spike in liquidations on the futures market, with US$28 million worth of shorts and US$24 million worth of longs wiped out on Tuesday, followed by another US$13.5 million in short liquidations this morning.
Ethereum (ETH) closed Tuesday 0.9% higher at US$1,873, though has fallen back 0.75% to US$1,859 in this morning’s Asia trading window.
In the altcoin space
A few select altcoins have been trending well, though Bitcoin has managed to reclaim 50% market dominance metric after a solid week below.
Binance’s recent global push outside of the US has been good for world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange’s BNB token, which is currently 3% higher week on week with a market capitalisation of US$37.7 billion.
Meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) remains the best performer of the top-20 altcoin bunch, adding 5% week on week.
Meanwhile, Cardano (ADA), Solanna (SOL), Litecoin (LTC) and the bitcoin hard fork Bitcoin Cash (BCH) have added low single digits to the respective market caps.
Global cryptocurrency market cap currently stands at US$1.18 trillion, having added 1.6% overnight.
The Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index ticked two points higher to 53 overnight, which still places it in a neutral position.