Bitcoin Bitcoin prices topped $81,000 during the Asian session on Tuesday, rising 6.7% for the week, benefiting from broader risk sentiment, with stocks hitting records on receding tensions over Iran and renewed optimism about artificial intelligence, according to CoinDesk market data.
Other cryptocurrency majors also participated in the bid. Solana rose 3% to $87.35. Dogecoin rose another 4% to $0.1158, extending its weekly gains to 14.5% as futures open interest hit a new high for the year. XRP, BNB, and TRX are all green on the day.
Ethereum lagged behind, falling 0.3% in 24 hours despite posting a weekly gain of 3.9% to $2,376. Spot ETH ETF flows turned negative last week, ending three consecutive weeks of inflows.
Wall Street closed at a record high on Tuesday after President Donald Trump signaled progress toward a “final deal” with Iran and announced a short-term pause in Operation Freedom. Brent crude fell 1.7% to around $108 a barrel. The dollar, which has been the safe-haven currency of choice during the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, weakened against all G10 currencies.
Asian stocks soared to record highs on Wednesday morning, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rising 1.8%. South Korea’s Kospi’s share price rose more than 6%, hitting a record high, and Samsung Electronics’ share price soared 15%, reaching a valuation of US$1 trillion, becoming the second Asian company to break through this mark.
Strong earnings from Advanced Micro Devices and Super Micro Computer bolstered artificial intelligence trading momentum, with Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.6%.
Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said on the company’s first-quarter 2026 earnings call that the company may sell some of its Bitcoin assets to pay dividends, a key development.
“We may sell some Bitcoin to pay dividends just to inject some vaccine into the market and send the message that we did this,” Thaler said.
The world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder holds 818,334 Bitcoins at an average acquisition cost of $75,537 and has never sold any positions before. The pattern has been buy and hold.
Strategy reported a first-quarter net loss of $12.54 billion as Bitcoin’s slide from a peak of $126,000 in October weighed on the company’s mark-to-market accounting. The company has annual dividend obligations of approximately $1.5 billion in preferred stock and outstanding debt and has approximately 18 months of U.S. dollar reserves to pay these dividends at current operating rates.
After the news was announced, MSTR’s stock price plunged more than 4% in after-hours trading, and Bitcoin briefly fell below $81,000 before recovering.
Thaler sees the move as a feature of the model rather than a break from it.
“You buy Bitcoin with credit, let it appreciate, and then you sell Bitcoin to pay the dividends.”
This differs from previous strategic quarters where the strategy was to issue more debt or equity to fund debt rather than touching the Bitcoin stack.