Bitcoin Near $82K as Strategy Spends $193M on Buybacks, Not BTC
Strategy spent $193.1 million buying back its own preferred stock last week and just $22.1 million on bitcoin, a nearly nine-to-one split from the company that built its name on buying BTC. Bitcoin is trading near $81.9K and ether near $2,400, and Fear & Greed has cooled to 59 (Greed) from 69 a week ago. Meanwhile, JPMorgan put its JPM Coin deposit token on Ethereum and the EU named USDC its first significant e-money token. This issue covers both sides.
This week in 30 seconds:
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🟠 Strategy spent $193.1M on preferred buybacks and $22.1M on bitcoin
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🏦 JPMorgan’s JPM Coin deposit token is now live on Ethereum
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🇪🇺 USDC becomes the EU’s first significant e-money token under MiCA
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🎙️ Three new interviews: Daski, peaq and Gnosis Guild
🟠 STRATEGY SPENT 9X MORE ON BUYBACKS THAN ON BITCOIN
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Buybacks beat bitcoin. Strategy bought 267 BTC for $22.1M during Oct 12 to 18, taking holdings to 848,517 BTC at an average cost of $75,446. In the same week it spent $193.1M repurchasing 1,938,780 of its own preferred shares. Read →
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The cash pile is shrinking. USD Cash fell to $447.3M from $640.5M in one week, and the board raised its digital credit securities buyback cap from $2B to $3B.
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Why it matters. MSCI has signaled index rule changes that could exclude Strategy as a “non-operating” company, and the preferreds are trading below their $100 par value. Watch whether USD Cash holds above $400M, and the MSCI decision expected within weeks.
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Saylor’s next product. At ParaFi Investor Day he outlined a dollar-pegged, Bitcoin-backed stablecoin that he described as capable of paying 6% to 8%.
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Mood check. Fear & Greed is at 59 (Greed), down from 69 last week. Bitcoin is up about 1% on the day, near $81.9K.
📈 THE CHARTS: BTC HOLDS ITS 50-DAY, ETH LOSES IT
Bitcoin (daily)
Bitcoin is sitting right on its 50-day moving average near $81.5K after an AI Take Profit printed in early October. It is below the 20-day (about $83.3K), but the dashboard still reads bullish on the 1W, 1D and multi-timeframe, RSI is neutral at 48.5, and Smart Money is IN. The 45M and 15M are bearish, so expect some chop first.
My bias: Neutral, leaning bullish while $81.5K holds.
What I’m watching: A daily close back above $83.3K reopens the $87.4K high. Losing $81.5K puts the September floor back in play.
Support: $81.5K, then $75K to $76K | Resistance: $83.3K, then $87.4K
Ethereum (daily)
ETH is the weaker chart. An AI Sell printed in early October and price has since lost both the 20-day (about $2,546) and the 50-day (about $2,551), now trading near $2,403. The dashboard reads bearish on the 1D and multi-timeframe with RSI at 37.5, though the 1W is still bullish and Smart Money is still IN.
My bias: Bearish below $2,550.
What I’m watching: Reclaiming $2,550 flips the chart back. Losing the recent low near $2,320 opens the 200-day near $2,150.
Support: $2,320, then $2,150 | Resistance: $2,550, then $2,807
Signals powered by EngineeringRobo AI
🎙️ THREE BUILDERS: AI AGENTS, MACHINES AND SECRET BALLOTS
AI agents hit a wall on the web. Daski’s Pawel Mastalerz on the fix
Watch the interview
Paying is the easy part. Daski founder Pawel Mastalerz, who also co-founded FIO, argues that buying a real service is a long relationship: forms to fill, work to track, support when something breaks, renewals later. Daski is a marketplace where AI agents can buy real-world services on their own, and it lands right in the middle of the TOKEN2049 debate over whether agents need crypto at all.
Watch the full interview on CCS → · Read the article → · YouTube →
Software is solved, hardware is different: peaq’s Martin El-Khouri on an economy for machines
Watch the interview
Robots, cars and sensors need the same boring basics humans rely on before a machine economy can work: an identity, a wallet and a credit history. peaq’s Martin El-Khouri explains why he thinks the next wave of builders is moving from software to hardware, how peaqOS went omnichain with Solana, and what the 2.5 million activated machines on peaq’s dashboard really mean. He is upfront that many of them are legacy machines already in the ecosystem.
Disclosure: Ashton Addison is an early investor in peaq, since 2021.
Watch the full interview on CCS → · Read the interview → · YouTube →
Secret ballots on chain: Gnosis Guild’s Auryn Macmillan on the Interfold
Watch the interview
Every worthwhile democracy votes in secret, but on chain someone usually still has to see the inputs to count them. Auryn Macmillan, co-founder and CEO of Gnosis Guild, explains how the Interfold uses fully homomorphic encryption, threshold decryption and zero knowledge proofs to keep votes and bids secret while the results stay verifiable. Network alpha went live in August with the FOLD token, and the Interfold itself is still the only entity that has made requests.
Watch the full interview on CCS → · YouTube →
Browse all interviews on the CCS Interview Hub →
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🏦 ALSO THIS WEEK: WALL STREET AND BRUSSELS MOVE ON STABLECOINS
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JPMorgan brings JPM Coin to Ethereum. The deposit token, which first launched on Base in November 2025, now supports transfers across Ethereum and Base for institutional clients. JPMorgan stresses it is a deposit token, not a stablecoin. Read →
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The EBA names USDC the EU’s first significant e-money token. It was announced Oct 14, and from Nov 12 the EBA takes direct oversight of reserves, liquidity and redemption planning for Circle’s EU issuer. 45 e-money tokens have been notified under MiCA. Read →
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Stablecoin payments are outgrowing stablecoin supply. Allium finds payment volume up 45% while supply grew just 0.4%. Read →
🔥 WEEKLY SIGNAL RECAP
The rest of the week, one line each.
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Babylon Labs asks Aave governance to accept native bitcoin as collateral. CCS →
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Aave governance advances a V4 deployment proposal on Tempo. CCS →
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Ethereum developers schedule the Glamsterdam upgrade for the Hoodi testnet on Oct 26. CCS →
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Solana’s tokenized asset market reaches $4.3B, up sixfold in a year. CCS →
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A California regulator settles with Fidelity over restricted crypto withdrawals. CCS →
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Vitalik Buterin releases a privacy wrapper for AI agents that masks user identity and payments. CCS →
✍️ ASHTON’S TAKE
Why Strategy buying back its preferred shares makes sense to me
The headline looks bad at first glance: Strategy spent nearly nine times more buying back its own preferred shares than buying bitcoin last week. I don’t read it as Saylor losing conviction.
If you’re long-term bullish, and Strategy clearly is, a pullback after a major run-up is exactly when you want to be buying. Bitcoin has come off the $87K highs, and Strategy’s preferreds are trading below their $100 par value. So this is still buying the dip, just on the preferreds instead of bitcoin. Every share retired at a discount is a dividend Strategy never has to pay, and that leaves more room to buy bitcoin later.
Saylor already puts what feels like 110% of the company’s capital into bitcoin. If he threw out every bit of treasury management and traditional capital markets discipline, investors would be upset. With MSCI weighing whether to drop “non-operating” companies from its indexes, this is the wrong moment to look like a fund with no plan. Defending the preferreds is part of keeping the machine running.
And he didn’t stop buying. Strategy still added 267 BTC last week and now holds 848,517. The number I’m watching is USD Cash, now $447.3M. If it keeps sliding to the point where buybacks and dividends crowd out bitcoin purchases, that’s a different story. For now, this looks like a long-term bull managing his balance sheet through a dip.
Ashton Addison
CEO, Crypto Coin Show & BlockWest
💬 YOUR TURN
Strategy just spent nearly nine times more on buybacks than on bitcoin. Does that change how you see the corporate treasury bid? Hit reply and tell me.
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