- Early on Tuesday, Bitcoin briefly slipped to $69,690, before paring some of its losses.
- The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency is down over 8.4% compared to last week.
- Strategy, cryptocurrency’s biggest institutional holder, Strategy, sold some of its tokens for the first time since 2022
Bitcoin dropped below $70,000 for the first time since April 8 due to concerns over the US-Iran war and cryptocurrency's biggest institutional holder, Strategy, selling some of its tokens for the first time in three and a half years.
Early on Tuesday, Bitcoin briefly slipped to $69,690, down over 3.8% compared to Monday, before it pared some of its losses, as per Forbes.
Other major crypto tokens remained unaffected by the Bitcoin selloff on Tuesday, as per the outlet. Ether, XRP and Binance's BNB remained mostly stable at $1,981, $1.26 and $681, respectively.
“Geopolitical uncertainties coupled with jitters about Strategy's treasury outlook have been weighing heavily on Bitcoin,” Caroline Mauron, co-founder of Orbit Markets, told Bloomberg.
The world's most valuable cryptocurrency is down over 8.4% compared to last week.
Bitcoin is also facing threat from the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that initially helped drive its price higher when they were launched over two years ago. Investors have taken out almost $2.5 billion from US spot Bitcoin ETFs over a record 11 straight days, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.
Another factor in Bitcoin's fall was Strategy's first sale of Bitcoin since late 2022. Between May 26 and May 31, Strategy sold 32 coins for $2.5 million, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company also put 801,994 shares of common stock in the market during the same period, raising $128.3 million, as per CNBC.
The sale came soon after Strategy announced a shift from co-founder Michael Saylor's longstanding “never sell” strategy in order to actively manage its balance sheet. The pivot includes potentially selling bitcoin if it strengthens the company's financial position, pays dividends or improves bitcoin-per-share metrics.
The average sale price per bitcoin for Strategy's tokens was around $77,135. The company's stock price slipped 5.85% on Monday after the disclosure.
The last time Strategy sold the tokens was in December 2022, during a bitcoin bear market with the collapse of FTX, rate hikes and widespread crypto contagion due to interconnected lending platforms and hedge funds.
Even after the sale, Strategy holds 843,706 bitcoins. The tokens were bought at an average purchase price of $75,699, making the firm the largest institutional holder of the cryptocurrency.
