Morning Minute: Saylor Sells Bitcoin for First Time Since 2022 – Decrypt

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Bitcoin bleeds after Saylors sells, falls another 3.7% to $69,300
• NEAR leads alts, jumping 17% on the day; WLD +12%
• Major dispute over Polymarket’s “Will Strategy sell…” market currently resolving as NO
• Pavel rebrands Toncoin as GRAM, token briefly pops 13%
• Schwab targets 2027 for rollout of its spot crypto trading product

📉 Saylor Sells Bitcoin for First Time Since 2022

Strategy disclosed that it sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31 at an average price of $77,135, raising about $2.5 million.

So what?

Well, it’s the company’s first Bitcoin sale since December 2022. And it comes after years of Saylor bullposting things like “Never sell your Bitcoin” or “Sell your kidney, but not your Bitcoin.”

The proceeds will go directly toward funding distributions on STRC preferred stock, which Saylor now finds himself owing a boatload of thanks to STRC’s popularity.

The market did NOT like the news. Strategy fell by 6% on Monday while Bitcoin has fallen below $70k and back to a near two-month low of $69,500.

The number itself is almost comically small. The 32 coins sold represent about 0.0038% of Strategy’s total position. In the same week, the company raised $128.3 million selling its own common shares through its at-the-market program, dwarfing the Bitcoin sale by a factor of fifty.

But that’s not the problem. Strategy carries approximately $13.5 billion in total preferred equity obligations with an annual dividend burden of roughly $1.2-1.4 billion, against a cash reserve of just $871 million. That means without any new STRC issuance, the company has less than nine months of dividend coverage on hand.

So the market’s current problem is—how much more will Saylor sell going forward? He just changed from being a passive Bitcoin investor who only buys, to an active fund manager that buys and sells. And that change will take some time for the market to absorb.

Now if there are no more sells for awhile or they remain small in nature, this could blow over. But if they escalate in size and or frequency, that likely spells near-term pain.

🤯 Polymarket Says Saylor Didn’t Sell Bitcoin in May

The Strategy Bitcoin sale has created one of the most unusual Polymarket disputes in the platform’s history—and it’s likely going to cause the team some serious headaches and potentially cause an overhaul to its resolution system.

A contract asking “Will Strategy sell Bitcoin in May 2026?” had accumulated over $50 million in bets—and is now heading toward a NO resolution, despite the fact that Strategy sold Bitcoin in May.

Here’s the situation: Strategy’s 8-K disclosed that it sold 32 Bitcoin between May 26 and May 31. The transactions happened in May. But the 8-K was filed on June 1. The contract’s resolution criteria specified:

“The primary resolution source for this market will be information from MSTR and on-chain data, however a consensus of credible reporting will also be used.”

Now the NO side is arguing that the reporting came after the May 31 deadline and thus should not count.

The YES side argues the transactions are onchain and the 411 BTC Coinbase Prime transfer visible to Arkham on May 26 constitutes disclosure.

At time of writing, it appears that NO bettors are winning and have UMA on their side. Which is absolutely the wrong outcome for the “spirit” of this bet.

Polymarket was supposed to be a “truch machine.” Now it’s resolving $50M markets based on technicalities. Users aren’t going to like this one…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red on the day with BTC falling 4% after Saylor sold; BTC -4% at $69.3k; ETH even at $1,980; SOL -2% at $78.8; HYPE even at $72.8
• NEAR (+17%), WLD (+11%), and RENDER (+10%) led top movers
• Oil -1% at $91; Gold +1% at $4,560
• Stock futures are red and down slightly after the S&P hit a new ATH yesterday
• Pavel Durov announced Telegram is rebranding Toncoin to GRAM, its original planned name before the SEC forced Telegram to abandon the project in 2020; TON +6%
• The CME saw $50M in volume in its first weekend of 24/7 trading for its crypto futures and options
• Charles Schwab is targeting a 2027 roll out of its crypto spot trading for wealth advisors
• SpaceX added dilution language to its amended IPO filing Monday, disclosing it “may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions,” widely read as preparation for an eventual Tesla merger
• Vitalik proposed using options contracts in DeFi as a structural fix for liquidation cascades—the mechanism behind most major 2026 DeFi losses; his model would let borrowers pay a premium for a “soft liquidation” option that reduces collateral requirements gradually rather than triggering an instant forced sale
• A crypto wallet recovery team recovered more than $2 million in Ethereum that had been inaccessible for over a decade
• Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party formally proposed legalizing crypto ETF trading,, calling for a legal framework that would allow crypto ETFs on Japanese exchanges by 2027

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were slightly red; DOGE -1%, SHIB +1%, PEPE -1%, PENGU -3%, TRUMP +3%, BONK even%, SPX even%, FARTCOIN even%
• Three (+12x), Henry (+170%) and Pepti (+10x) led notable movers on Solana
• Base movers included Atbash (+140%), PRXVT (+31%) and Nock (+10%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Kalshi filed to self-certify perpetual futures on 12 altcoins on Monday: ETH, XRP, SOL, DOGE, Stellar, Chainlink, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Sui, Shiba Inu, Polkadot, and Hedera—the day after the CFTC approved its Bitcoin perp
• The EdgeX token fell ~50% yesterday from $1.30 to $0.65 causing millions in liquidations

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were red again; Punks even at 31.8 ETH, BAYC -4% at 8 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 4.09 ETH; Hypurr’s +0.4% at 309 HYPE
• Squiggles (+5%) and Habbo (+8%) led top movers
• OpenSea teased its perps launch, offering early access to users on X