Bitcoin topped $81,000 during Asian hours Tuesday, according to CoinDesk market data, up 6.7% for the week and riding the broader risk-off band that shows stocks printing records on easing Iranian tensions and renewed AI optimism.
Other crypto majors responded. Solana zoomed 3% to $87.35. Dogecoin added another 4% to $0.1158, extending its weekly gain to 14.5% as futures open interest sits at year-long highs. XRP, BNB and TRX are all printed in green on this day.
Ether is lagging, down 0.3% over 24 hours despite a weekly gain of 3.9% to $2,376. Spot ETH ETF flows turned negative last week, ending a three-week inflow streak.
Wall Street indicators closed at all-time highs Tuesday after President Donald Trump reported progress toward a “final deal” with Iran and announced a pause in Operation Project Freedom for a short period. Brent crude fell 1.7% to around $108 a barrel. The dollar, which had been the safe haven of choice during the US-Israel war against Iran, has weakened against all of its G10 peers.
Asian stocks hit an all-time high Wednesday morning, with the MSCI Asia-Pacific index rising 1.8%. South Korean company Kospi surged more than 6% to a record, while Samsung Electronics surged 15% to reach a valuation of $1 trillion, the second Asian company to cross that mark.
Strong earnings from Advanced Micro Devices and Super Micro Computer contributed to AI trading momentum, with Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.6%.
A key development came when Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said during the company’s first quarter 2026 earnings call that it may sell some of its Bitcoin holdings to fund dividend payments.
“We will probably sell Bitcoin to pay a dividend, just to inoculate the market and send the message that we did it,” Saylor said.
The world’s largest bitcoin holding company, sitting on 818,334 BTC at an average acquisition cost of $75,537, has yet to sell any of its positions. The model has always been buy and hold.
Strategy reported a net loss of $12.54 billion in the first quarter as bitcoin’s decline from October’s high of $126,000 weighed on the company’s mark-to-market accounting. The company has annual dividend obligations of approximately $1.5 billion in preferred stock and debt outstanding, with approximately 18 months of U.S. dollar reserves to cover them at current rates.
MSTR shares fell more than 4% after hours following the announcement and BTC briefly slipped below $81,000 before recovering.
Saylor presented this decision as a feature of the model rather than a departure from it.
“You buy Bitcoin on credit, let it appreciate, then sell Bitcoin to pay the dividend.”
This is a different phrase than every previous strategic quarter, where the scenario was to issue more debt or equity to fund the bonds rather than touch the BTC stack.
