Morning Minute: Strategy Chooses Cash, STRC Over 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.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors and alts are very red; BTC -2.7% at $63.4k; HYPE -9% at $54
• Saylor raises $525M in cash, buys STRC over BTC
• Coinbase leans into meme coins with new “Launches” feature
• Fomo app notches new ATH in weekly revenue and fees
• FWA opens platform up to wrapped ERC20s, starting with PNKSTR

₿ Strategy Chooses Cash, STRC Over BTC

Strategy went a fifth straight week without buying Bitcoin, its longest pause in two years, padding its cash reserve by $525M instead. Their cash reserves are now up to $3.75 billion, covering 2.1 years of the $1.76 billion in preferred dividends and debt interest Strategy owes annually.

The company sold 5.4 million MSTR shares through its at-the-market program between July 20 and 26 to raise cash, while its Bitcoin holdings stayed frozen at 843,775 BTC, untouched since the 520-coin purchase on June 22. Strategy also repurchased $25 million of its own STRC preferred stock, its first purchase under the $1 billion authorization the board approved June 29.

STRC has traded below its $100 par value since mid-May and hit record lows earlier this month, so Strategy is now using shareholder-funded cash to prop up the same preferred stock whose slide has been dragging on the whole structure. So Saylor is now selling MSTR shares 80% off ATH to buy STRC (12% off its peg) instead of Bitcoin.

Clearly, MSTR holders enjoy the pain. For five weeks, Saylor has been diluting common shareholders by selling MSTR to build cash and now to buy back preferred. Last week, Strategy even overhauled its own metrics, introducing “net Bitcoin per share” that strips out $22.2 billion in debt and preferred claims, and redefining mNAV so the stock now reads 1.02x, right at the line below which issuing shares to buy coins would actually shrink Bitcoin per share.

As for the Strategy BTC stack, it is now $8.5 billion underwater against the $63.69 billion Strategy paid. But earnings are coming this Thursday, and Saylor is one to have tricks up his proverbial sleeves. Perhaps we will learn more about his plan and his next move later this week.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are very red amidst memory stock selloff and South Korean market slide; BTC -3% at $63.4k; ETH -4% at $1,875; SOL -4% at $73.1; HYPE -9% at $54.45
• No top movers
• Oil -2% at $81; Gold -1% at $4,030
• Stock futures are mixed as memory stocks selloff but others pump on strong earnings; DOW +0.7%, Nasdaq -0.9%
• The US Senate put off the CLARITY Act for now, focusing its limited pre-recess bandwidth elsewhere, effectively confirming the crypto market-structure bill misses its August window despite weeks of last-minute negotiation
• Circle bought nearly 1,000 blockchain patents from IBM, a defensive intellectual-property move to arm itself as stablecoin competition from Open USD, Visa, and Stripe intensifies
• Kalshi and Polymarket won a pause against Minnesota’s prediction-market ban, a legal reprieve as the platforms keep fighting state-level challenges across the country
• Fanatics bought a regulated exchange to grow its prediction-markets business, bringing the $30 billion sports-merchandise giant directly into the space alongside Kalshi and Polymarket
• Kraken parent Payward acquired Magic Labs’ embedded wallet business, absorbing a platform that’s created over 60 million wallets since 2018, while Magic rebrands to Newton Labs to focus on its onchain-finance authorization layer

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were very red; DOGE -4%, SHIB -6%, PEPE -5%, PENGU -8%, TRUMP -6%, BONK -5%
• Robinhood chain had no notable movers; leaders PONS (-17%) and Cashcat (-13%) fell, while Stonkbroker held even at $13M
• Solana leaders included bulltom (+70x), Brotchen (+60%) and Cards (+12%); ANSEM -7% at $165M, EPIK +10% to $14M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Coinbase added a “Launches” tab to its DEX, letting users find and trade new Base and Solana tokens the moment they go live onchain
• The Fomo app just closed its highest week of revenue ($1.79M) and fees ($1.96M)
• Pons shared that it’s already bought back and burned 22% of its PONS token
• Stablecoin chain Stable said transaction volume jumped over 700% in two days, pushing some RPC mempools to capacity as it scrambles to expand infrastructure, though it stressed the network is operating normally and still producing blocks

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +1% at 32.5 ETH, BAYC -1.5% at 8.45 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4.07 ETH; Hypurr’s -3% at 188 HYPE
• StonkBrokers (+5% to 2 ETH) and Satari (+58%) led top movers
• FWA added new token packs, allowing assets like Pokemon cards or tokenized stocks to be included in the prize pool, starting with wrapped ERC20s like PNKSTR tokens