Strategy Stock Falls Below $100 for First Time Since 2024

These are the biggest stories in web3:

Strategy's stock fell below $100 Wednesday for the first time in two years, capping a week in which the company sold BTC for the first time since 2022, watched its STRC preferred trade below the $100 par for a sustained stretch, and froze its at-the-market issuance. The structural unwind tracked here since STRC's first record-low close on June 18 is now visible in the equity.

The death-spiral debate Jeff Dorman and Austin Campbell ran on Tuesday's WATCH section reads differently today. Dorman's case — that Saylor may have to dump billions in BTC to defend the preferred stack — is what the market now appears to be pricing at higher odds Campbell's deeper question, whether the structure was ever sound, becomes the next thing to test. Watch which channel Strategy uses to fund the next BTC purchase; the answer says whether the model survives this cycle.

Read more below!

PARTNER

Nexo is a digital wealth platform offering crypto yield up to 15% and crypto-backed credit lines from 1.9%. Join and get 30-day access to exclusive rates. Terms apply.

WATCH

$STRC Meltdown: Is Michael Saylor's Strategy Entering a Death Spiral?

Tuesday's live conversation reads as today's lead in real time. Camila Russo sits with Jeff Dorman, CIO of Arca, and Austin Campbell, founder of Zero Knowledge, for the death-spiral debate now running across crypto desks. Dorman argues Saylor may have to dump billions in BTC to defend the preferred stack; Campbell asks whether the structure was ever sound.

MARKETS

Strategy Stock Falls Below $100 for First Time in Two Years as Analysts Pick Apart Its Bitcoin Bet

Strategy's common shares traded below $100 for the first time since 2024, a ~62% drawdown from the $264 March high. The slide came as sell-side analysts began questioning the leveraged-treasury playbook the company pioneered: STRC preferred trading below par for weeks, the at-the-market issuance frozen, and the first BTC sale since 2022 reported last week. The pattern matches what the Defiant flagged on June 18 when STRC first closed below the $100 anchor the instrument is engineered to defend.

Why this matters: The leveraged-treasury thesis now has its first equity-level stress test. Watch how Strategy funds the next BTC purchase — the answer prices the model.

PARTNER WITH US

Your message in The Defiant Daily. Land in front of the highest-intent crypto audience. ~110K subscribers. 25% open rate. 6 days/ week Become a Sponsor

MARKETS

Bitcoin Slips Under $60,000 as Tech Rout, Hawkish Fed Hit Crypto

Bitcoin slipped under $60,000 Wednesday afternoon as a tech-sector rout and hawkish Fed signals cascaded into crypto. The Nasdaq fell 1.8% on the same session that Federal Reserve officials walked back September rate-cut expectations; SOL led the major-cap decline at -5%, with ETH down 4% to $1,617 and BNB and XRP both off 2–3%. The selloff broke a four-week range and reset the technical picture for the back half of June.

Why this matters: The macro tape is back in charge of crypto for the first time since the spring. Strategy's collapse and BTC's leg down both trace to the same hawkish-Fed catalyst.

REGULATION

Lummis Sets July as Senate Floor Deadline for Clarity Act, Tells Dimon to Read the Bill

Senator Cynthia Lummis set July as the Senate floor deadline for the CLARITY Act, telling colleagues the bill must pass before the August recess and directing JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon to "read the bill" after he questioned its scope this week. The deadline raises the stakes on the ethics-language standoff between Senate Democrats and the Trump White House that has shadowed every prior vote attempt.

Why this matters: Lummis owns the legislative tempo on market structure. A hard July deadline forces the Senate-Democrat / White-House ethics deal into a single window — or kills the bill this Congress.

BLOCKCHAINS

Ethlabs Will Overlap with the Ethereum Foundation and Draw Its 'Densest Talent,' Funders Say

Ethlabs will overlap with the Ethereum Foundation by design, absorbing what its founders call the "densest talent" from EF's research footprint. The interview-led feature lands two days after the lab formally launched alongside the EF restructuring, and clarifies the two orgs' relationship: complementary scope, separate funding, shared open-source output. EF keeps execution and client coordination; Ethlabs takes consensus, cryptography, and the harder long-horizon research that doesn't ship on a quarterly cadence.

Why this matters: Ethereum's research stack now runs on two non-profits in deliberate overlap. The bet is parallel pressure beats single-org concentration risk.

CORRECTION NOTICE

We have corrected the following article today: Sonic Labs Board Members Including Former CTO Andre Cronje Resign as New CEO Takes Over