Michael Saylor's Near-Billion Bitcoin Purchase Precedes Sharp Drop

Michael Saylor is a man of conviction. At a time when pessimism seems to have permeated every corner of the crypto ecosystem, the 60-year-old billionaire chairman of bitcoin treasury firm Strategy announced on Monday morning that his company purchased roughly $980 million worth of BTC, bringing Strategy's total holdings to 671,268 bitcoin, currently valued at more than $57 billion. But curiously, the cryptocurrency tanked shortly afterward.

"I used to have this weird belief that institutions buying billions of dollars worth of bitcoin every week would make the exchange rate go up," said longtime bitcoin contributor Jameson Lopp, echoing similar comments from across social media.

The digital asset's price appears to be marching to the beat of a mysterious drummer whose rhythm is mostly divorced from the cadence of markets. Favorable macroeconomic events such as last week's rate cut by the Fed, normally a bullish signal for risk-on assets like bitcoin, are failing to boost price action. The cryptocurrency has struggled to sustain a rally ever since the so-called "Great Liquidation" event of Oct. 10-11 wiped out $19 billion from the crypto market.

And now, even a sizeable purchase by perhaps the most prominent man in the bitcoin ecosystem has not only failed to trigger a marginal price increase, but also seems to have pushed bitcoin further into retreat. Less than two hours after Saylor announced his near-billion-dollar buy, the cryptocurrency took a precipitous nosedive into $85K territory.

"Saylor can buy $10 billion and the price would still dump because they're not dumping real Bitcoin," said bitcoin trader Stefan "Whale Panda" Jespers, who has been sounding the alarm on potential BTC price manipulation.