Strategy (MSTR) sold 3,588 bitcoin for approximately $216 million last week, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 BTC, according to a Monday SEC filing.
The company said proceeds from the bitcoin sales will be used to fund distributions on its preferred stock and replenish the portion of its U.S. dollar reserve used for those payments. As of July 5, the USD reserve totaled $2.55 billion.
The latest sales were executed at an average price of roughly $60,000 per bitcoin and are dramatically higher than the 32 bitcoin sold by the company about one month ago, which sent crypto prices plunging. Strategy currently holds 843,775 BTC acquired for approximately $63.69 billion, or an average purchase price of $75,476 per bitcoin.
Strategy also said it did not sell any shares under its at-the-market equity program during the week ended July, and did not repurchase any shares under its buyback programs. The company added that the full $1.25 billion capacity under its recently announced BTC Monetization Program remains available.
Strategy shares are down 2% in pre-market trading and bitcoin has given up much of its weekend gain, trading down to $61,900 from $62,900 prior to the announcement.
Bitmine Immersion (BMNR), the largest Ethereum (ETH) treasury company, stepped up its buying pace last week, purchasing 42,197 ether (ETH) as chairman Thomas Lee pointed to improving prospects for U.S. crypto legislation as a catalyst for the asset.
The latest purchase, worth roughly $74 million based on ether’s current price of around $1,750, lifted the company’s holdings to 5.74 million ETH, according to a Monday update. The stash is now worth about $10 billion and represents 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply, inching closer to the firm’s goal of cornering 5% of the asset’s supply.
The company also held 206 bitcoin, $527 million in cash and marketable securities, plus stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings, bringing its total crypto, cash and investment holdings to $11.1 billion.
The acquisition marks an increase from the prior week’s purchase of 27,084 ETH, though it remains below the six-figure weekly buying pace BitMine maintained earlier this year.
Bitmine buys as Strategy sells
Bitmine’s continued buying contrasts with a shift at Strategy (MSTR), the largest digital asset treasury and corporate bitcoin holder, which sold about $216 million worth of BTC to raise cash. The sale marked a rare reduction in Strategy’s bitcoin holdings and underscored the funding pressures the company faces amid the crypto market downturn and increased dividend obligations.
AVAX One Technology, the Nasdaq-listed Avalanche treasury and bitcoin-mining company, said Chief Executive Jolie Kahn resigned effective July 3, with Chief Operating Officer Pete Wylie stepping in as interim CEO, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
AVAX One Technology, the Nasdaq-listed digital infrastructure company that mines bitcoin and holds a strategic Avalanche treasury, said Chief Executive Jolie Kahn resigned effective July 3, with Chief Operating Officer Pete Wylie stepping in as interim CEO, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company, which trades as AVX, said the departure came “by mutual agreement” and that there was no disagreement over the company’s operations, policies or practices, per the filing. The board has retained ZRG Partners, a global executive search firm, to find a permanent successor.
Separation Terms
Kahn will receive a $160,000 lump-sum cash payment in lieu of remaining consulting fees, reimbursement for certain medical insurance costs, and a grant of unregistered common stock with a fair market value of $250,000, under a Separation and Release Agreement dated July 5, according to the 8-K filing. The agreement terminates Kahn’s consulting agreement with the company, dated November 1, 2025, and keeps her bound to non-competition, non-solicitation and non-disparagement terms.
Wylie will receive total compensation of $40,000 a month in the expanded role while continuing as COO, the filing shows.
Leadership Transition
Board chairman Matt Zhang said in the announcement that Kahn “played an instrumental role in positioning AVAX One for long-term success as we transformed into a digital infrastructure company,” and that the board has “full confidence in Pete’s ability to lead the Company through this transition.”
Wylie previously served as CFO of Napster Holdings through its 2025 acquisition by Infinite Reality and as CFO/COO of consumer lender CommonBond, according to the press release. He also co-founded fintech company Gradible, which CommonBond acquired in 2016.
“I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to lead AVAX One through this transition,” Wylie said in the release, adding that he is “committed to keeping the team focused on execution and delivering long-term shareholder value” while the board runs its search.
Nasdaq Compliance Backdrop
The leadership change comes as AVAX One works to clear a Nasdaq listing deficiency. The company received a notice for falling below Nasdaq’s $1.00 minimum closing bid price requirement and faced a compliance deadline of July 6 — the same day its CEO transition became public — to show 10 consecutive trading days back above that threshold. Shareholders approved a 1-for-12 reverse stock split on May 29, which took effect June 15 and cut AVAX One’s share count from roughly 92.3 million to about 7.7 million, according to a company press release.
AVAX One describes itself as a digital infrastructure company building modular data centers for AI and high-performance computing, while also mining bitcoin in Alberta and Ohio at roughly 300 PH/s of hashrate and holding a strategic AVAX treasury that earns staking yield, according to the press release.
Avalanche Treasury Corp (AVAT), a separate Nasdaq-listed AVAX treasury vehicle that The Defiant reported in July disclosed a going-concern warning to the SEC after its stock crashed 93% in a month.
Cantor said Strategy’s (MSTR) top priority is restoring its STRC preferred stock to par, arguing that doing so is key to restarting the company’s bitcoin BTC$63,785.78 acquisition engine and strengthening its capital structure.
After meeting with Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, the Wall Street investment bank said it came away more confident in management’s plan to stabilize the balance sheet and revive capital raising.
In early Monday trading, STRC changed hands at $87.79, bitcoin was near $61,800, and MSTR was down 3.4% at $97.34. Just minutes ago, Strategy announced the sale of $216 million of bitcoin, with the cash to be used to fund STRC dividends.
Rather than viewing preferred holders, common shareholders and bitcoin investors as competing interests, the bank argued STRC is the foundation of Strategy’s funding model.
“This makes it a good time to either buy STRC—capturing both the spread to par as well as the instrument’s substantial yield—or to buy shares of MSTR common—which should rally as the overall capital structure moves to firmer footing,” analysts led by Ramsey El-Assal said in the Monday note to clients.
Decentralized finance protocol Summer.fi has paused its Lazy Summer vaults after an exploit that drained about $6 million from the Ethereum-based yield platform, according to the project and several blockchain security firms.
Lazy Summer is an automated yield platform that routes deposits across lending markets such as Aave and Morpho in search of higher returns while handling rebalancing on behalf of users.
The incident was first flagged by blockchain security firm Blockaid, with PeckShield and CertiK also reporting suspicious activity. Summer.fi later confirmed it was investigating the attack and said protocol guardians had paused affected vaults to prevent additional losses.
Early analyses suggest the attacker leverageda large flash loan attack, reportedly sourced through Morpho, to manipulate the accounting logic of Lazy Summer’s automated USDC vaults.
DeFi security researcher Bhari noted that the exploit took advantage of a flaw in the code to inflate total assets, which they were then allowed to redeem for a net profit. The stolen funds were apparently converted to DAI on Curve before being transferred to the attacker’s wallet.
The protocol had $22 million in total value locked before the exploit, according to DeFiLlama data. The protocol’s SUMR token lost more than 18% of its value after the exploit was uncovered.
DeFi vault platform Summer Finance was drained of roughly $6 million on Monday in an exploit that security firm Blockaid said its detection system flagged as it was unfolding. Blockaid posted the exploit transaction, the attacker’s address and the affected Lazy Summer contracts within minutes of…
DeFi vault platform Summer Finance was drained of roughly $6 million on Monday in an exploit that security firm Blockaid said its detection system flagged as it was unfolding. Blockaid posted the exploit transaction, the attacker’s address and the affected Lazy Summer contracts within minutes of its initial alert, and PeckShield separately confirmed the $6 million loss in DAI.
“We are aware of the reported exploit a little earlier today and are investigating the root cause,” Summer Finance said in an X post at 4:42 a.m. Easter Time, its latest update at press time. “The protocol guardians are currently pausing all Vaults across the Lazy Summer Protocol.”
Summer Finance, known as SummerFi, is a DeFi yield-aggregation and automated vault-management platform with about $25 million of Total Value Locked, according to DeFiLlama. Blockchain analytics firm Onchain Lens, relayed by WuBlockchain, said the attacker took out a 64.8 million USDC flash loan to exploit the protocol by abusing parent vault Fleet Commander’s trust in its underlying Ark strategy contract.
The maneuver artificially inflated the Ark’s reported assets to about $7.14 million, letting the attacker redeem roughly 71 million USDC before repaying the flash loan and pocketing the difference. Security firm CertiK put the flash loan size at $65.4 million and estimated the attacker’s profit at about $6 million, a figure consistent with Blockaid’s and PeckShield’s tallies.
Independent researcher analysis found the exploit relied on legitimate protocol functions, including deposit, redeem and withdrawFromArks calls, rather than compromised keys or admin access. The researcher described the root cause as an accounting vulnerability exploitable within a single transaction.
The attack targeted how Summer Finance’s Fleet Commander vault architecture priced assets held in its Ark strategy modules, allowing a single flash-loaned transaction to inflate reported holdings and extract funds before repayment. Summer Finance had not issued its own public statement on the incident as of publication.
Interestingly, after a series of buys and sales over the past few weeks, the company is left with a net increase of only 69 bitcoin despite deploying roughly $20 million in additional capital, a crypto trader, KALEO, said on X. Because the company sold coins below the prices it had recently paid, the implied average cost of those additional holdings exceeded $289,000 per bitcoin, KALEO added.
Strategy now holds 843,775 bitcoin purchased at an average price of $75,476, maintaining its position as the largest publicly traded corporate holder of the cryptocurrency.
Despite the losses, today’s move to sell millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin will likely signal to investors that Strategy will go to whatever lengths necessary to protect its dividends on its high-yielding preferred stock, Stretch (STRC), whose dividend now stands at 12% after a recent 50 basis-point increase.
Indeed, while bitcoin and Strategy’s common stock, MSTR, are lower on Monday, STRC continues to rebound from last week’s low below $75, rising another 2.1% to just shy of $90.
The ‘strategy’
Given the zigzags in strategy over the past few weeks, the company’s near-term capital allocation has become harder for investors to predict. Assuming relatively stable prices for BTC, MSTR, and STRC, it’s probably safe to say that bitcoin buys are off the table for the foreseeable future.
A rebound at the start of the US session pushed the price higher before settling around the $62,000 mark at the time of writing.
Strategy revealed that it sold 3,588 BTC through July 5 to fund preferred stock dividend payments and replenish cash reserves.
Commenting on the latest BTC price moves, X commentator Exitpump suggested that the Strategy news was the catalyst for an already weakening market.
“Bearish signs were there, posted about it yesterday, news about Saylor selling just triggered more dump,” they wrote.
“Funding is still pretty positive. That was it i guess. Short term bounce from 61.2k and then more dump imo.”
Exitpump referred to funding rates across exchanges, with a post on Sunday eyeing a buyer entity using a time-weighted average price (TWAP) method to add exposure.
“Once the TWAP buyer backs off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a fast flush lower,” they wrote, anticipating a price ceiling at $64,000.
BTC chart with funding rate data. Source: Exitpump/X
Trader and analyst Rekt Capital appeared unsurprised by the behavior, reiterating similarities between current price action and the latter portion of the 2022 bear market.
“Generally, Bitcoin is doing the same exact thing now as it was doing in the Summer of 2022,” he told X followers.
An accompanying chart showed the 50-month exponential moving average (EMA) trend line potentially becoming new resistance, just like four years ago.
BTC/USD one-month chart with 21, 50EMA. Source: Rekt Capital/X
Analyst: Strategy may reveal more BTC buys
Others remained upbeat, with trader Jelle eyeing bullish divergences on weekly time frames on the BTC/USD relative strength index (RSI).
Related: $60.4K Becomes ‘most important area’: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week
“I have seen the $BTC chart look much worse than this over the years,” he argued.
BTC/USDT one-week chart with RSI data. Source: Jelle/X
As Cointelegraph continues to report, various onchain indicators have printed reversal signals absent since late 2022.
Crypto trader and analyst Michaël van de Poppe, meanwhile, suggested that Strategy itself could end up delivering a market rebound.
“The markets are reacting with a shock response to this news. $BTC drops, and it’s clearly valuing the potential impact that Strategy can continue to sell Bitcoin going forward,” he wrote on X.
“However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a message in the coming days that they’ve been buying more $BTC than they’ve sold.”
South Korea’s media and communications review body said it will hear from Polymarket before deciding whether to take corrective action against the prediction market platform.
On Monday, the Broadcasting, Media and Communications Review Committee said it would allow Polymarket to submit its position before making a final decision on a corrective request regarding gambling concerns.
“We decided to provide an opportunity for Polymarket to submit its opinion to thoroughly verify the legality of Polymarket and the way the service is operated,” the committee said, according to a machine translation of the press release.
South Korea’s National Gambling Control Commission Act defines “illegal gaming business” to include providing online services that enable speculative gambling and gives regulators authority to monitor and combat such businesses.
The review comes as Polymarket faces access restrictions in several jurisdictions. According to Polymarket, its platform is restricted in 33 countries, including the US, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Singapore, Japan and Australia.
Related: US dominates Polymarket political bets despite geoblock: Report
South Korea’s scrutiny moves from users to the platform
The review marks a shift in South Korea’s scrutiny of Polymarket from users to the platform itself. It also follows an earlier police probe into local Polymarket users over alleged illegal gambling linked to election-related markets.
On June 5, the Gangwon Provincial Police launched what was reportedly South Korea’s first illegal gambling probe into local Polymarket users. The investigation was requested by the National Police Agency, according to local media reports at the time.
Under South Korea’s Criminal Act, gambling is punishable by a fine of up to 10 million won (about $6,500), while habitual gambling can carry up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 20 million won. Meanwhile, operating a gambling venue for profit is punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won.
South Korea’s Criminal Act. Source: Korea Legislation Research Institute
Polymarket says its restrictions are designed to comply with sanctions, local financial rules, gambling and prediction market laws, anti-money laundering requirements and Know Your Customer regulations.
The company also lists certain regions within otherwise accessible countries as restricted, including Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec in Canada, as well as Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine.
Circle’s USDC stablecoin widened its lead over competitor Tether’s USDT by transaction volume during the first half of 2026, according to fresh data from Visa’s onchain dashboard.
In June alone, stablecoin activity increased to a record $1.79 trillion in adjusted transaction volume, up 63% from May’s $1.1 trillion and 125% from about $795 billion in June 2025. Visa removes bot activity, exchange transfers and other blockchain transactions that do not reflect real economic activity before calculating adjusted volume.
These figures come as banks and other financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins for payments, settlement and treasury operations. Standard Chartered and BNY recently added services around Circles’s USDC rather than building their own infrastructure which also reflects a broader shift toward using established stablecoin networks as activity and demand for fiat-pegged digital assets increases.
The first six months of the year totaled $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume. That is more than the $5.8 trillion recorded during all of 2024 and $2 trillion less than the record $10.8 trillion reported in 2025.
USDC accounted for about 70% of adjusted transaction volume during the first half of 2026. USDT represented roughly 25%..
