Public Companies Sold $8 Billion Of Bitcoin This Year

Fourteen listed companies have sold 108,247 BTC since January, about $8.08 billion at the prices they got. The tally comes from Lookonchain’s monitoring of on-chain data. Lookonchain posted it on X on November 10, and Wu Blockchain passed it on to a wider audience.

Two miners carry most of the list. MARA sold 40,581 BTC (about $3.03B) at an average of $74,446, and Riot Platforms sold 20,264 BTC (about $1.51B) at $73,231. Between them that is roughly 56% of the total. Bitdeer, Cango, CleanSpark and Core Scientific fill the next slots, with between 3,000 and 10,600 BTC each.

MARA’s numbers are the ones that stuck with me. In its third quarter letter it said it sold 13,597 BTC after September 30 at about $81,039 each, raising around $1.1 billion. Of that, $750 million repaid Bitcoin-backed loans it took out in August, when BTC was near $64,000. It now holds about 20,415 BTC. That is about 40% of its September stack gone in six weeks. Quarterly revenue fell 35% to $164.2M, the board approved a $500M buyback, and the company is aiming for two AI data center leases before year end.

That is the pattern across the list. Miners are selling coins to fund AI data centers, repay debt and buy back shares. Riot, for one, has reportedly kept only about 2,400 BTC in reserve.

The tally needs a caveat. Some of the figures are estimated outflows or trading-related deliveries, not confirmed spot sales. In scale terms, the 108,247 coins are about 0.54% of circulating supply. Miners selling coins is ordinary business. I don’t read this as fourteen CEOs losing faith.

What bothers me more is that other buyers are stepping back too. Capriole’s Charles Edwards flagged that the corporate buy-sell ratio fell to 89.58%, a level seen only three times before. Then, late Wednesday, MSCI finalized its decision to drop Strategy and other BTC-holding companies from its global indexes. Strategy estimated that MSCI-tracking funds hold about $1.6 billion of its shares, JPMorgan had projected up to $2.8 billion in outflows, and Strategy doesn’t have to sell any Bitcoin. Index changes take effect after November 30.

Where BTC Stands Today

BTC is hovering around $72,000 to $74,000 on Thursday, depending on the venue and the hour. Fortune had it at $73,208 at 6:30 a.m. ET, about 12.7% below a month ago and roughly 28% below a year ago. The pressure comes from several places:

• US spot BTC ETFs logged a fourth straight session of net outflows on November 10, about $95 million.
• Hot US inflation data on November 10 and bets on a Fed rate hike are weighing on risk assets.
• Glassnode shows stablecoin supply down about $14.2B in 30 days, the biggest drop since 2022. The Fear & Greed Index sits at 28

Traders are watching support at $72,700 to $73,000 and whether BTC can reclaim $75,000 to $75,600. One daily chart read has BTC below every key moving average, with hourly RSI near 26.6, which is oversold but not a confirmed reversal.

MSCI’s changes land after November 30, and MARA says its data center lease news is due before year end.