The Ultimate Bull Signal: Can Bitcoin Rally Without Saylor’s Bid?

Bitcoin has spent the past month trading as if one buyer, Strategy, matters more than everyone else. When Strategy is in the market, BTC finds support. Conversely, when Strategy steps back, the tape softens quickly. 

Last week, the company bought 34,164 BTC for $2.54bn, taking its total holdings to 815,061 BTC. Strategy’s Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) was real spot demand landing into a market that is still trying to decide whether this move can stand on its own at a critical resistance level near $80k.

In March, post ex-dividend week, Strategy significantly slowed down with its BTC purchasing, simultaneously dragging down BTC’s price. BTC has held its price because Strategy was there, and the next move depends on whether that bid is still there once the ex-dividend window has passed. 

March already showed the risk. Strategy bought hard into the window, then backed off, and BTC lost altitude almost immediately. April is the same setup going into the post-ex-dividend weeks. The real question is whether Strategy keeps buying once the dividend window closes.

If April avoids the post-dividend fade we saw in March, the bull case for BTC becomes much stronger. If not, then this was simply a larger version of the same pattern.

TL;DR

• Strategy is the largest margin buyer in the market, heavily driving Bitcoin returns in the last month proven by recent US-hours rallies.

• The March Pattern: Strategy bought BTC heavily heading into the $STRC ex-dividend window, but BTC prices saw a sharp drop in the following two weeks.

• The April Difference: So far, BTC has not suffered the post-dividend fade, holding strong around $77.5k as of 22 April.

• The Signal: The upcoming 8-K filing (due 27 April) is crucial in determining whether Strategy actually keeps buying after the ex-dividend window closes.

• The Long-Term Risk: Strategy’s 11.5% dividend rate is expensive. If capital markets tighten, they may eventually be forced to sell BTC or dilute stock to fund it.

Bitcoin's Biggest Marginal Buyer: Strategy

In the past month, almost all BTC returns were generated during US trading hours – partially coming from Spot ETFs, but mostly from Strategy’s buy pressure. The cleanest way to read this move is not as a vague “risk-on” rally, but as a concentrated US bid supported by ETF flows. Farside’s daily data show net inflows of about $1bn, highlighting meaningful demand.

However, this still doesn’t fully explain the tape on its own. Strategy’s $2.54bn buy in the week ending 19 April was larger than those ETF net inflows, lending support to the idea that the better read is not that “ETFs were absent,” but that both ETFs and Strategy were buying. Strategy’s bid was large enough to be one of the most important marginal bids in the market, which also fits the session chart. With almost all the returns landing in US hours, and one of the largest US buyers putting $2.54bn to work, Strategy’s relevance to BTC’s price is hard to understate.

The True Rally Test Comes After Ex-Dividend

In March, Strategy heavily bought into the $STRC ex-dividend window, but BTC’s price saw a sharp drop in the two weeks after. In the week ending 22 March, $STRC demand collapsed from $1.18bnto just $76.5m. MSTR’s common ATM activity dropped to zero as well. In the week ending 29 March, combined ATM proceeds fell to zero. Strategy bought no BTC at all for the first time in 13 weeks.

The two-week silence from Strategy accompanied by BTC dropping during the same time, remains the clearest example of why Strategy is instrumental to BTC’s price action. BTC drifted down into the low $70k region, printing roughly $70.4k on 20 March and $70.6k on 23 March. The tape reflected the reality: when STRC stops and MSTR common doesn’t backfill the gap, the bid weakens materially.

As such, the key question now is whether April repeats March’s hangover or breaks the pattern.

The next 8-K, due 27 April, covers the week ending 26 April. If STRC issuance drops again to a rounding error and MSTR common ATM stays near zero, April remains a larger version of March, not a regime change. However, if STRC remains active and MSTR common ATM comes in at a meaningful level — north of $150m — then the script has changed.

BTC Has Not Broken Yet: Why April Matters

15 April 2026 marked the $STRC ex-dividend date for April, with STRC dividends still running at an annualised rate of 11.50%. In the week ending 19 April, Strategy raised $2.5bn and bought 34,164 BTC, acting as an enormous burst of demand. However, the real narrative is what has happened to BTC since then: unlike March, BTC has not seen immediate price drops.

It can be argued that Strategy has changed the market dynamic. However, the upcoming filing matters a lot more than the previous one. If the usual post-dividend fade appears, then April may just be a replay of March price action. If not, then the market has to seriously consider that Strategy is not just buying into the window, but supporting BTC beyond it.

Will the BTC Buying Continue?

This is the part that actually matters for traders.

Nobody gets paid for noticing that Strategy bought a lot of BTC last week. What matters is whether that buying continues once the clean ex-dividend setup is gone.

March tells us that a huge ex-dividend week, by itself, is not enough. Strategy bought 22,337 BTC in the reporting period ending 15 March, then effectively vanishing for the next two weeks. BTC weakened accordingly.

April tells us that the door is still open for a different outcome, because Strategy bought 34,164 BTC, and the BTC tape has not yet followed March lower.

The setup here is straightforward. If the next 8-K shows meaningful post-ex-dividend buying, the market will have to assume the bid is still alive. If it shows another sharp drop in issuance, then March was the operating pattern and not an accident. 

Why This Is Bullish Now — But Raises Concerns In The Future 

As of April 2026, STRC is running at an annualised dividend rate of 11.50%, which is fine while the market is happy to fund the structure and while BTC is cooperating, but becomes much less comfortable if BTC stalls and the capital markets stop being generous. 

While this is a medium-term issue, and not the immediate trading setup, it is still real. The flywheel works best when BTC is rising and investor appetite is strong.

As such, the cleanest framing is: Strategy is bullish for BTC while it is buying, but that does not mean the structure is risk-free. For now, the market only needs to care about the first half of that sentence.

Final Take

BTC has recently traded like a market with one unusually large marginal buyer driving it: Strategy. March was an example of what happens when that single buyer disappears. April’s price action is likely to follow a similar path when Strategy’s $STRC halts capital raise for the first two weeks after ex-dividend.

So the right way to read this market is not to obsess over the last headline purchase number, but to ask a much simpler question: is Strategy still bidding BTC once the obvious window is over? If the answer is yes, BTC likely keeps finding support. If the answer is no, then BTC is about to find out what it looks like without its biggest visible marginal buyer underneath it.

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