Strategy, Metaplanet and Strive All Added Bitcoin This Week as the Top Three Holders Pass 935,000 Coins
Three of the biggest public Bitcoin holders all bought more coins this week, and the combined stack held by the three largest, Strategy, Metaplanet and Twenty One Capital, has now passed 935,000 BTC. A fourth company, Strive, posted its biggest single purchase in four months in the same stretch.
METAPLANET SELLS 10,000 BITCOIN, THEN BUYS BACK 11,000
Metaplanet sold 10,000 BTC and later bought back 11,000 BTC during the third quarter to demonstrate it could convert its holdings into cash, a liquidity test tied to its push for a credit rating. The sale brought in roughly $789.2 million at an average of $78,925 per coin, and the repurchase cost about $948.7 million at an average of $86,246 per coin. The net result was a gain of 1,000 BTC, lifting Metaplanet's total holdings to 44,000 BTC as of September 30. Benzinga described the Tokyo-listed company as the world's second-largest corporate Bitcoin holder after the move, a stack it says now outsizes the bitcoin held by Tesla, SpaceX and Coinbase combined.
STRIVE'S BIGGEST BUY IN FOUR MONTHS
Strive announced that between September 28 and October 2 it purchased 2,000 bitcoin at an average price of approximately $84,422 per coin, a roughly $169 million outlay. The purchase was Strive's biggest in four months and lifted its total holdings to 29,462 BTC. CEO Matt Cole said 61.5% of the funds used for the purchase came from Strive's SATA preferred stock, with the remaining $56.7 million raised through warrants.
STRATEGY CROSSES 4% OF BITCOIN'S SUPPLY
Strategy's own buy was smaller by comparison. The company purchased 334 BTC for $28.7 million at an average of $85,838.80 per coin, taking its total holdings to exactly 848,000 BTC, equal to 4.04% of Bitcoin's 21 million hard cap. It was Strategy's third consecutive weekly purchase after a summer pause. Chairman Michael Saylor said on X that the company recorded $21 billion in digital-asset gains in the third quarter of 2026.
THE MILDEST BEAR MARKET BITCOIN HAS HAD
The buying spree landed almost exactly on the one-year anniversary of Bitcoin's last cycle top. Bitcoin's all-time high of $126,198.07 was set on October 6, 2025. A year later, Bitcoin was down just 32%, trading at $85,453, a far shallower drop than past cycles produced at the same point. A year after the November 2021 high, Bitcoin was down 74.6%, and prior peaks saw even steeper one-year losses. The bear market itself bottomed below $59,000 on June 30, a decline of more than 53% from the peak, compared with 77% to 85% drawdowns in earlier cycles. The low also arrived earlier than usual, about nine months after the peak rather than around the one-year mark, with a faster recovery since. HashKey Group researcher Tim Sun told CoinDesk that "the most notable changes are the significantly shortened duration of the drawdown and the reduced time spent at the bottom."
The two trends point at the same thing. Corporate treasuries are pulling coins out of circulation while the broader market has stopped falling as hard or as long as it used to, and that combination is the supply-side case Bitcoin bulls have been waiting to see confirmed.
This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.
