Bitcoin Holds $76.4K as Strive Adds 382 BTC, ETF Outflows Hit $649M, Canaan Posts $88.7M Loss

Bitcoin News

Crypto markets traded flat in early Tuesday U.S. hours as surging long-end Treasury yields kept pressure on risk assets. Bitcoin hovered near $77,000 while the 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.186%, the highest level since 2007 and up roughly 20 basis points this month. Equities tied to the digital asset complex traded mixed, with Coinbase and eToro posting modest gains while mining names broadly slipped. Bakkt was an outlier, jumping 19% after director Michael Alfred's investment vehicle disclosed a $4.85 million share purchase, a signal of insider conviction as the firm pivots deeper into stablecoin payments infrastructure following its Distributed Technologies Research acquisition.

Mining hardware maker Canaan reported an $88.7 million net loss for the first quarter of 2026, with revenue plunging to $62.7 million from $196.3 million in the prior quarter as falling BTC prices compressed margins. Industrial mining equipment sales fell 75% sequentially to $39.6 million, while self-mining contributed $19.1 million. A $25 million inventory write-down deepened the quarter's $23 million gross loss. Self-mining hashrate expanded 66% year-on-year to 11 exahashes per second, and the company held 1,808 BTC worth roughly $121 million. Management guided Q2 revenue between $35 million and $45 million, signaling further sequential weakness ahead.

A long-running dollar-cost-averaging backtest illustrates the resilience of disciplined accumulation through volatility. An investor putting $100 a month into BTC since January 2015 would have invested $13,700 across 137 purchases, ending with 8.219 BTC valued at roughly $632,315 as of May 19 — a 4,515% return at an average acquisition cost near $1,667 per coin. Yet the same strategy endured a 76.72% drawdown during the 2022 bear market. Lump-sum allocations outperformed DCA across one-, two-, three- and four-year windows in tested scenarios, with the recurring-buy advantage emerging only after a full crash-and-recovery cycle.

Strive, Inc. expanded its corporate treasury with a fresh 382 BTC purchase for approximately $30.3 million, executed between May 13 and May 18 at an average cost of roughly $79,348 per coin. The transaction lifts the Dallas-based firm's holdings to 15,391 BTC, ranking it among the largest public corporate holders globally. Strive disclosed a quarter-to-date BTC Yield of 6.6% and year-to-date BTC Yield of 18.4%, with its amplification ratio climbing to 44.3% on continued SATA preferred stock issuances. The company reported $87.3 million in cash and a $49.8 million stake in Strategy Inc.'s STRC preferred stock, framing BTC as its capital-allocation hurdle rate.

Bitcoin slid to roughly $76,700 after spot ETF redemptions hit $649 million in a single day — the largest outflow since January. Analysts argue the recent recovery from February lows was leverage-driven rather than spot-led. Weekly volume across the top 10 crypto assets averaged $80 billion in 2026, less than half the $178 billion weekly pace recorded in 2025. Open interest swelled from $16 billion to $20 billion over the same window, a textbook re-leveraging without underlying conviction. The 30-day realized cap net position change sits near $2.8 billion, well below the $10 billion velocity that defined the prior bull cycle.

A major bank report argues ether and the broader altcoin complex will keep lagging BTC absent a meaningful surge in on-chain activity, DeFi adoption and real-world use cases. Spot bitcoin ETFs have recovered roughly two-thirds of prior outflows, while spot ether ETFs have recouped only about one-third. Momentum traders, including CTAs and crypto quant funds, remain slightly underweight both assets. Upcoming Ethereum upgrades such as Glamsterdam and Hegota are designed to boost scalability, but analysts caution prior upgrades weakened the burn mechanism, increased net supply and undermined price support across the layer-1 token.

Technically, BTC trades at $76,464 with a marginal 0.23% daily gain, holding the $75,967 support line ahead of deeper cushions at $74,443 and $72,673. The RSI at 43.22 sits in neutral-bearish territory while MACD continues to print a bearish signal, consistent with the sideways trend on the daily timeframe. Immediate resistance stands at $77,751, with reclaim targets at $79,055 and $80,507 needed to flip momentum. A clean break above $77,751 on rising spot volume would invalidate the leverage-led thesis; a daily close below $74,443 would expose the $72,673 swing low and confirm structural cracks.