Bitcoin fell back below $74,000 at the start of the week, a first since August. The price has fallen about 9% since its peak in early November, above $81,000. At this level, Strategy's bitcoin treasury once again shows an unrealized loss.
Michael Saylor's company paid its 850,364 bitcoins for $75,456 each on average. Just last week, she bought 1,036 at $79,012 per unit.
Key Points
Bitcoin fell below $74,000, the lowest since August, after peaking above $81,000 in early November
Strategy holds 850,364 BTC acquired for $75,456 on average and its cash flow is back in the red, as in February
The price remains about 41% below its October 2025 record but significantly above the June low of $58,000
US bitcoin ETFs see nearly $1.5 billion in net withdrawals since the start of the month
Bitcoin below $74,000 for the first time since August
The price touched $73,700 at the start of the week, according to CoinGecko. As of mid-afternoon on Tuesday, it was still trading around $73,800 on Binance.
The decline continues a slide that began at the end of September, when Bitcoin flirted with $88,000. On November 4, it still exceeded $81,000 before outflows from American spot ETFs began to decline.
Over the course of the year, the shock remains contained. Since its October 6, 2025 record high above $126,000, Bitcoin has returned just over 40%. The real bottom was hit in June around $58,000, or 54% below the peak.
The previous two bear markets had been more brutal. They had erased 84% of the price in 2018 then 77% in 2022.
Strategy and Michael Saylor again below their cost price
According to its purchase log updated on November 9, Strategy holds 850,364 BTC acquired for $64.16 billion. The average cost price is $75,456.
Below $74,000, the latent loss exceeds a billion dollars. The scenario is not new. The treasury had already fallen into the red at the beginning of February, a first since the end of 2023, when Bitcoin plunged towards $60,000.
Investors especially monitor mNAV, the ratio between the group's enterprise value and that of its bitcoins. CoinGecko puts it around 0.98. Under 1, each share issued to buy BTC dilutes shareholders instead of enriching them.
Strategy sold just over 2 million MSTR shares last week to finance its latest purchases. Michael Saylor has never hidden his line:
“I will buy the top forever. »
Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, on Bloomberg in February 2024
A forced sale remains unlikely. The group's debt is essentially convertible and does not include a margin call backed by bitcoins. In May, Strategy even bought back $1.5 billion in bonds maturing in 2029 in advance.
The pressure is elsewhere. Dividends from its five preferred stocks, from STRK to STRC, cost around $1.6 billion per year. Between the end of June and the beginning of August, Strategy sold bitcoins to honor them, a first since 2022. Its dollar reserve reached 4.77 billion as of November 8.
Crypto: ETFs and miners absorb the shock
Launched in January 2024, US spot ETFs still hold more than 1.2 million BTC. This is more than the treasure attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, estimated at 1.1 million pieces.
November started off badly for them. Cumulative net withdrawals reached $1.48 billion as of November 9, according to Farside Investors.
These funds do not use leverage. A share buyback results in a cash sale, not a cascading liquidation. The release is therefore done in dribs and drabs, where the futures platforms ship the same amount in a few minutes.
The miners cash in differently. The block reward fell to 3,125 BTC in April 2024, and older generation machines quickly fall out of profitability when electricity is expensive. The most exposed operators disconnect. The difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks and the network continues to produce a block approximately every ten minutes.
