Who’s buying BTC this cycle? 

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THE WEEK IN MARKETS

It’s been another bumpy week for crypto as macroeconomic and industry headwinds persist. Within the sector, uncertainty is mounting following announcements that Michael Saylor’s company, Strategy, is structuring a program to sell up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin to bolster its USD cash reserves and fund buybacks. Underlying this anxiety is the unresolved conflict in the Middle East, alongside a hawkish Federal Reserve stance that continues to cloud market sentiment. Consequently, Bitcoin has dipped below $60,000, trading more than 5% lower over the last seven days, while the broader crypto market follows suit. Concurrently, traditional equity investors have begun taking profits from red-hot AI and chip stocks, leaving major indexes looking flatter over the week, but there have been some pronounced green candles early this week.

🔥 WHAT’S UP: Solana | +6.8 | 7 days

💧 WHAT’S DOWN: Ethereum | 4% | 7 days

Data correct as at 30 June 2026.

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THE BIG READ

Five cycles, five narratives: Who buys Bitcoin next?

Each Bitcoin cycle produces a new dominant narrative, and each narrative can be defined by a different investor class. The 2013 cycle was built by early believers like cypherpunks and forum anarchists who saw digital cash more as an ideology. By 2017, retail traders entered en masse. In 2021, NFT culture and DeFi yield farming pulled in an entirely new demographic: younger, more speculative, and largely indifferent to Bitcoin’s original ideological proposition. 

The 2025 cycle broke the pattern. Institutions replaced retail as the primary price discovery engine. ETF inflows broke records. Corporate treasuries accumulated aggressively. Bitcoin hit an all-time high before the halving had even occurred, somethingunprecedented in its history. The machinery of traditional finance had finally arrived, but the bull run felt different in that it was quieter, more measured.

So the big question is who buys Bitcoin in the next cycle?

New cycles are not typically fuelled by the same narratives or participants that drove the previous one. They are built on fresh stories that capture a different kind of imagination. The institutional wave that drove prices to all-time highs last year seems to have dissipated for now but smart money constantly rotates.  

Bitcoin in 2026 looks less driven by hype cycles alone. Attention is shifting toward whether ETF flows are sticky, whether scaling infrastructure can support mass retail adoption, and whether regulation opens the doors for mainstream capital. None of these forces move in a straight line, and none of them show up cleanly on a price chart.

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PICTURE THIS

Bitcoin market capitulation: A breakdown of previous lows 

Source: Yahoo Finance and Bitcoin Magazine. 

When more than 50% of the total Bitcoin supply falls into unrealised losses, it means that the majority of active investors are holding BTC valued below their average buying price. In on-chain financial analysis, some look to this metric as an indicator of market capitulation and seller exhaustion. Because speculative, short-term traders typically exit the market during the preceding price drawdown, reaching this 50% threshold, some see this as a sign that the remaining circulating supply has consolidated into the hands of high-conviction, long-term holders. 

Here’s a breakdown of the three previous capitulation periods shown on the chart and the main reasons behind them:

Early 2019: Post-2017 cycle correction

This period marked the low point of the multi-month correction following the 2017 market peak. The primary drivers were increased global regulatory scrutiny and the Bitcoin Cash network hard fork (“Hash Wars”) in late 2018, which destabilised market confidence and led to a final wave of selling volume that exhausted remaining sellers.

March 2020: Global liquidity contraction

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a systemic liquidation across all global financial markets. As investors sought immediate fiat liquidity, forced liquidations cascaded through crypto derivatives exchanges. Because this was an external macroeconomic shock rather than an industry-specific failure, the market stabilised and recovered rapidly once broader market liquidity returned.

Early 2023: Deleveraging and structural failures

A combination of macroeconomic tightening and internal industry contagion. Throughout 2022, the Federal Reserve and other central banks aggressively raised interest rates to combat inflation, reducing capital allocation to risk assets. This liquidity contraction exposed high leverage and poor risk management within the crypto sector, resulting in successive insolvencies, including the Terra/Luna collapse, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Celsius Network, and ultimately the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange in late 2022. The market bottomed out as institutional unwinding concluded in early 2023.

Mid-2026: Institutional capital withdrawal and macro re-tightening

The current capitulation period in mid-2026 coincides with a combination of macroeconomic tightening and institutional capital rotation. Macro pressures led to record net outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs as institutional allocators rotated into other positions. Add to this regulatory delays surrounding digital asset frameworks and strategic treasury adjustments by major corporate holders, short-term investor selling has pushed over 50% of the Bitcoin supply into unrealised losses.

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QUICK TAKES 

💵 Strategy establishes $2.55B reserve capital overhaul

Strategy implemented a Digital Credit Capital Framework, establishing a board-approved $2.55 billion USD reserve policy, alongside a $1.25 billion Bitcoin monetisation authorisation. Designed to maximize treasury flexibility, the new framework empowers management to actively liquidate parts of its massive 847,363 BTC treasury to support preferred dividend yields, maintain cash liquidity, and execute up to $2 billion in strategic equity buybacks. It marks a major restructuring from passive asset accumulation to liquidity management. – Read more

🫰 Ark Invest buys the dip

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has started aggressively accumulating shares of Coinbase, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood. According to recent fund disclosures, Ark has invested $43.5 million into institutional crypto equities. The aggressive accumulation signals that a top-tier fund manager like Ark sees these price corrections as a prime liquidity window to secure dominant equity inside the emerging Web3 financial architecture. – Read more 

📉 Japanese Yen falls to 39-year low against US Dollar

The Japanese yen fell to its lowest level since 1986, triggering market anxiety over an imminent currency intervention by Tokyo officials. The decline highlights a widening structural divergence in global monetary policies. Japan’s Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the government was ready to take appropriate action against excessive currency moves. “That includes taking decisive action, as confirmed between Japan and the US,” Katayama said.- Read more

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TOWN HALL

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PROBABLY SOMETHING

*Investing in cryptocurrency may result in the loss of capital. This information should not be construed as a solicitation to trade. All opinions, news, research, analysis, prices or other information is provided as general market commentary for information purposes only and is not investment advice or recommendation. Luno always advises you to obtain your own independent financial advice before investing or trading in cryptocurrency.