MicroStrategy offloaded 32 bitcoin during the final week of May – a tiny slice of its 843,706 BTC hoard – to cover preferred stock dividends. The sale barely registers against the company's $54 billion stack, but markets took notice. Bitcoin slid nearly 5% on Tuesday to $67,875 after the announcement, and MicroStrategy's own stock (MSTR) dropped almost 10% across two sessions.
A sliver of the treasury
Thirty-two coins is pocket change for a holder of MicroStrategy's size. The company has built its identity around never selling bitcoin, but preferred dividends don't pay themselves. The sale came from the preferred stock program, not the core bitcoin treasury strategy. Still, any sell-side pressure from a whale like MicroStrategy tends to spook short-term traders. Data from Wintermute shows longer-term holders are actually buying bitcoin via OTC desks in the $60k–$65k range on an 18-month view – a signal that the dip brought in institutional appetite.
Kendrick's ETH call
Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick sees this as the moment ether starts to outperform. He expects the ETH-BTC ratio to climb from roughly 0.028 to 0.040 by year-end. His longer-term targets are aggressive: $4,000 ether by the end of 2026 and $40,000 by 2030. Monday already marked one of the largest ETH-BTC topside moves on a bitcoin down day since early 2024 – only 23 larger relative ether gains have been recorded in that span.
The staking edge
Kendrick's thesis hinges on a simple math problem: ether holders who stake their tokens earn about 3% yield. That gives Ethereum-focused treasury firms a structural advantage over bitcoin-only companies, which may have to sell coins to fund operations when yields are absent. MicroStrategy's sale is a real-world example of that friction. If more corporate treasuries adopt ETH for its yield, pressure on bitcoin to fund operating needs could creep higher.
Market reaction and what's next
Bitcoin's 5% drop is ugly but not catastrophic. The real story may be the rotation narrative: ether gained relative ground on a day when BTC got hammered. Whether that holds depends on whether staking yields actually attract corporate treasuries beyond crypto-native firms. For now, MicroStrategy sold 32 BTC. It's a rounding error on its balance sheet, but it shows even the most committed bitcoin buyer occasionally needs to cash out a few chips.
