Grayscale flags Strategy BTC sale as pressure point, calls for new buyer cohorts

Grayscale, a major asset manager, is warning that the current pool of corporate treasury buyers is not broad enough to absorb Bitcoin’s selling pressure alone.

The warning came as Bitcoin has dropped toward the dreaded $60,000 support level after experiencing an extended streak in spot ETF outflows, and as long-term Bitcoin holder Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR)also recently made its first sale of Bitcoin in nearly four years. 

Why is everyone selling Bitcoin right now?

Bitcoin has been experiencing several crises, including an increase in its ETF outflows. On June 2, investors pulled $519 million out of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. BlackRock’s fund (IBIT) lost $388.6 million while Grayscale’s fund (GBTC) lost $83.5 million.

Strategy, a long-term corporate buyer of Bitcoin sold its holdings for the first time in four years. The company holds 843,706 BTC, which is more than 4% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. But last week, it sold 32 coins for about $2.5 million to pay its stockholders. 

The amount was only 0.0038% of its total holdings, and Cryptopolitan reported that Jeff Walton, Strive’s chief risk officer, defended the move, arguing that the sale allowed Strategy to grow its cash reserves by up to $29 million in the same week, a 3.3% increase. 

On-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr. said the momentum that drove prices higher earlier in the year is now gone. 

Once prices fell, traders who borrowed money to buy Bitcoin were forced to sell. Between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion in crypto trades were liquidated within 24 hours. Most of the losses hit traders who were betting the price would go up.

Where does Grayscale think new buyers will come from?

The main buyers of Bitcoin in 2026 have been a small group of companies called digital asset treasury (DAT) firms. These are companies like Strategy that hold Bitcoin as their main business. 

But Grayscale believes the concentration of buying among a handful of treasury firms makes the current setup fragile. Strive (NASDAQ: ASST), the seventh-largest public corporate Bitcoin holder at 19,000 BTC, is raising $8.1 million per day through its SATA preferred stock program and recently acquired 2,500 coins in a single week at an average cost of roughly $74,092 each. 

Walton said that if Strive keeps raising money at its current speed, it could buy about 175,000 more Bitcoin, but that prediction would require the company to keep raising the same amount of money nonstop, get permission from the SEC to sell an extra $4.2 billion in stock, and spend every single dollar at today’s Bitcoin prices. 

Another cohort that could diversify the pool of buyers, based on a Coinbase survey, shows that 45% of Gen Z and Millennials already hold crypto, while only 18% of Gen X and Baby Boomers do. 

Grayscale suggests that about $110 trillion in assets held by Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation will pass to younger people over the next few decades, and so these younger investors could step in to save the market. 

Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research, estimates that if just 2% of that $110 trillion went into crypto, it would create $2.2 trillion in new demand. 

Grayscale also expects regular companies to start adding Bitcoin to their treasuries. This is already starting to happen with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company that holds 18,712 Bitcoin worth about $1.4 billion. The company is planning to go public soon. Grayscale’s Zach Pandl said SpaceX could become “the largest public company to hold Bitcoin” after its IPO.

Bitcoin’s price is currently around $63,000, down sharply from over $73,000 at the start of the month. Cumulative net inflows into Ether funds shrank to $11.24 billion, with $90.15 million exiting on June 2 alone.

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