Strategy Inc. (MSTR), the bitcoin treasury firm led by Michael Saylor, saw its stock trade around $156.51 on Tuesday, down roughly 3% over the past week. The decline coincided with an on-chain alert showing $297 million in bitcoin leaving wallets linked to the company, prompting traders to ask one question: is Michael Saylor's firm selling?

On-Chain Alert, Then a Clarification

The alert came from blockchain tracker Lookonchain, which flagged 12 outbound transfers from Strategy-labeled wallets over a nine-hour window. Added together, the transfers totaled about 3,568 BTC.

Is Michael Saylor( @saylor )'s @Strategy dumping $BTC again, or just moving funds to new wallets? Over the past 9 hours, #Strategy has transferred out 3,568 $BTC ($297M). pic.twitter.com/3vWTSs6ihX — Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 29, 2026

Movements of that size draw instant scrutiny: with 847,666 BTC in its treasury, Strategy ranks among the largest corporate holders of bitcoin, and since the company discloses its purchases through periodic filings, on-chain trackers are often the first to surface treasury activity — which is why a custodial reshuffle can read, for a few hours, like a sale.

Arkham analyst Emmett Gallic moved quickly to clarify the situation. According to Gallic, the transfers were routine movements within Fidelity Custody, not a sale of Strategy's bitcoin. Fidelity treats client bitcoin deposits as pooled funds rather than keeping each customer's coins in a separate wallet. When the custodian reshuffles its own addresses, it can look as though coins are leaving a client's wallet even though ownership never changes.

Why Traders Were Jumpy

Market participants still had reasons for caution. On June 29, Strategy launched a BTC Monetization Program that allows it to sell bitcoin from time to time to raise up to $1.25 billion for its USD Reserve. A July filing confirmed the firm sold 1,363 BTC between June 29 and 30, then another 2,225 BTC in early July. Those sales stood out in part because Saylor has spent years cultivating a reputation for never selling.

The timing of Tuesday's transfers did little to settle nerves. They surfaced just as bitcoin's price dipped below $83,000 before recovering, and as roughly $500 million in crypto positions were liquidated market-wide.

Strategy Keeps Buying

The company's latest filing tells a different story than the selling rumors suggested. Strategy purchased 1,665 BTC between September 21 and 27 for $142.7 million, an average of $85,681 per coin. The acquisition lifted total holdings to 847,666 BTC, bought for about $63.95 billion overall, with the average cost per coin now sitting at $75,437.

With bitcoin trading near $83,800, the stash is worth roughly $71 billion, putting Strategy's paper gain at about $6.5 billion — although that cushion is thinner than it looks. Last week's purchase at $85,681 per coin is already underwater at current prices, a reminder that even a firm this deeply invested in bitcoin is not immune to short-term swings. The two cost bases — $75,437 overall and $85,681 for the latest week — serve as simple reference points for how that cushion shifts with bitcoin's price.

Stock and Market Reaction

Strategy funded the recent purchase by selling roughly 1.47 million MSTR shares, and it directed part of the proceeds toward buying back $103.5 million worth of its STRC preferred stock. The company still holds $6.02 billion in cash reserves, giving it room to pay dividends without touching its bitcoin — a cushion many crypto-focused firms simply do not have.

Bitcoin itself recovered to about $84,500 before settling near $83,900. Liquidations across the crypto market totaled around $68 million over 24 hours, split almost evenly between long and short positions.

Saylor has continued to promote bitcoin publicly in recent days. He has proposed new rules that would allow banks to lend against bitcoin holdings, and he continues to share his weekly purchase updates through his Sunday charts. The next weekly filing is where continued buying — or any renewed selling under the BTC Monetization Program — would first surface, making Saylor's Sunday charts and the company's disclosures the checkpoints to watch.

Source: CoinCentral