NEW YORK, April 22, 2026, 15:15 EDT
Bitcoin traded near $78,800 on Wednesday, pushing back toward $80,000 as a U.S.-Iran ceasefire extension lifted risk appetite and Michael Saylor’s Strategy disclosed another large purchase of the cryptocurrency. Strategy shares were up about 9%, while BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust rose about 5% in New York trading.
The move matters because bitcoin’s April rebound is no longer just a crypto-market story. It is being driven by geopolitics, exchange-traded fund demand and one company’s balance sheet. Forbes said bitcoin had added almost 30% since falling to a recent low near $60,000, putting the market back in range of levels that could draw in momentum buyers.
Strategy said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it bought 34,164 bitcoins between April 13 and April 19 for about $2.54 billion, at an average price of $74,395. The company now holds 815,061 bitcoins bought for about $61.56 billion, or $75,527 each on average. The purchase was funded through at-the-market offerings, a structure that lets a company sell shares directly into public markets over time.
Saylor, Strategy’s executive chairman, put it more plainly on X: “Strategy has acquired 34,164 BTC for ~$2.54 billion.” He added that the firm had reached a 9.5% bitcoin yield for 2026, a company measure tied to bitcoin-per-share growth. X (formerly Twitter)
The buy also flipped a closely watched institutional ranking. CoinDesk reported that Strategy had moved ahead of BlackRock’s IBIT, which it put at 802,824 bitcoins as of April 20. IBIT is a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund, meaning it trades like a stock while seeking to track the price of bitcoin; Strategy, by contrast, owns bitcoin directly on its corporate balance sheet.
Fund flows are helping too. CoinShares said digital-asset investment products took in $1.4 billion last week, the strongest weekly inflow since January, with bitcoin products drawing $1.116 billion and ether products $328 million. James Butterfill, CoinShares’ head of research, wrote that bitcoin’s push through $76,000 was “a meaningful technical development” after two months of range-bound trading. CoinShares
The Saylor factor has become part of the price debate. A Benzinga article carried by Yahoo Finance said a Grok response had put Strategy’s steady buying at the center of bitcoin’s recent support, while declining to give an exact price for where bitcoin would trade without it. The cleaner number is in the filing: Strategy’s latest buy alone was worth more than $2.5 billion.
There is a catch. The same ceasefire that helped risk assets remains fragile, with the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports still in force and the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route, still a source of market stress. If talks stall, oil prices could feed inflation fears again; if demand for Strategy’s preferred and common stock weakens, its bitcoin buying engine could slow.
Max Kahn, CEO of Digital Wealth Partners, wrote in a Monday note shared with Investor’s Business Daily that he remained “optimistic on bitcoin” because of the macro backdrop and institutional participation. IBD said he pointed to the $78,000-$80,000 area as the range to watch. That is where the market now sits. Investors
