As Bitcoin hovers near $87,000, the global cryptocurrency market has seen a high-stakes battlefield. On one side, corporate giants Strategy and BitMine Immersion Technologies poured billions into Bitcoin and Ethereum. On the other, a massive infrastructure shock in China and a wave of bearish options trading threaten to pull the rug out from under the recent rally.
Strategy Buys $980M Bitcoin
Michael Saylor’s Strategy continues its relentless march toward total Bitcoin saturation. In an 8-K filing this Monday, the company disclosed the purchase of another 10,645 BTC for approximately $980.3 million.
Strategy has acquired another 10,645 BTC. – Source: StrategyTracker.
Strategy’s latest purchase marks the second consecutive week it has acquired more than 10,000 coins. The firm now controls a staggering 671,268 BTC – roughly 3.2% of the total 21 million supply, and also funded this latest haul through a “digital credit” engine, selling Class A common stock and a suite of high-yield preferred stocks (STRK, STRF, and STRD).
Despite a 41% year-to-date decline in its stock price, Strategy remains the world’s largest corporate crypto treasury. Saylor’s team argues that Bitcoin represents a foundational technological innovation, comparing the firm’s strategy to the infrastructure-building eras of Standard Oil or AT&T.
Learn more: NFTPlazas full guide about buying Bitcoin
BitMine Buys $321M Ethereum
BitMine Immersion Technologies is following a similar path with Ethereum. Led by Chairman Tom Lee, the firm added 102,259 ETH last week, worth an estimated $321.1 million.
BitMine now holds 3.97 million tokens, accounting for 3.2% of the circulating ether supply. The company calls this mission the “Alchemy of 5%,” which is a strategic goal to own one-twentieth of the entire Ethereum network.
“Ethereum is the future of finance,” Lee recently posted, pointing to JPMorgan’s launch of a tokenized money-market fund on the blockchain as proof of institutional inevitability. To turn this massive treasury into a yielding asset, BitMine plans to deploy its Made in America Validator Network (MAVAN) in early 2026, creating a domestic staking powerhouse.
Learn more: NFTPlazas guide: How to buy Ethereum?
China Mining Hits Record Low
In stark contrast, authorities in China’s Xinjiang region initiated a sweeping shutdown of Bitcoin mining facilities, forcing an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 mining rigs offline virtually overnight, causing a violent tremor in the network’s vital signs.
Within 24 hours, the global hashrate plummeted by 100 exahashes per second (EH/s), equal to an 8-10% collapse. Data from Glassnode confirms that the 30-day simple moving average hashrate fell from a peak of 1.1 ZH/s to just above 1 ZH/s, marking the sharpest post-halving decline since April 2024.
Bitcoin’s Mean Hash Rate’s 30D SMA has fallen to just above 1 ZH/s. – Source: Glassnode.
Former Canaan chairman Jack Kong noted that these Bitcoin mining shutdowns effectively “gifted” a larger share of network dominance to the U.S.-based miners. While the Chinese Communist Party cites energy concerns and increased scrutiny of social media-famous miners as the cause, the timing adds immense pressure to a sector already struggling with record-low profitability. Bitcoin’s current “hash price” sits at a five-year low of $37 per petahash, leaving many miners on the brink of insolvency.
$10,000 Targets and Index Risks
Despite the billions flowing in from treasuries, the broader market remains gripped by fear. Bitcoin failed to hold the $90,000 level late Wednesday, slipping back to $87,000 amid macro uncertainty.
Derivatives data shows high fear for the end of the year, with a massive wall of put options at the $85,000 strike for the December 26 expiry. Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone recently warned that the 2025 rally might have “planted the seeds” for a cycle reset that could eventually see Bitcoin drop as low as $10,000 by 2026.
Adding to the tension, the index provider MSCI is considering a proposal to exclude companies like Strategy and BitMine from global benchmarks. MSCI argues that firms with more than 50% of assets in digital currencies function more like investment funds than operating businesses. Strategy has fired back with a 12-page rebuttal, calling the proposal “discriminatory” and “arbitrary.” A final decision is expected by January 15, 2026, which could trigger $2.8 billion in selling.
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