Daily Crypto Roundup: Bitcoin Treasury Dumps Half Its BTC as $500K Price Predictions Face Reality

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome back to the Daily Crypto Roundup. There is a lot to get through today. And perhaps the biggest question hanging over the market is this. Are we watching crypto mature into something bigger, more useful and more institutional, but at the same time less capable of delivering the ridiculous returns people became accustomed to in previous cycles?
Before we get into it, let's have a quick look at the market. At the time of recording, Bitcoin is trading around $64,400.
Ethereum is around $1,822.
XRP is sitting close to $1.12, while Solana is trading just under $79.
And as always, before we go any further, if you enjoy the Daily Crypto Roundup, please follow the podcast and leave us a comment wherever you're listening. And remember, we are giving 20 XRP to listeners who sign up to Kraken using our link in the episode description and complete the required steps.
And one final thing we have screen-shotted all the XRP addresses that we will be sending 10 XRP to after yesterday's show, so thanks for getting involved. If you missed it, keep commenting, and it may be your turn the next giveaway we do. Now let's get into the first story, because it may be an important warning about one of the biggest trends we saw during the last crypto bull market. Bitcoin treasury company, Empery Digital, has sold approximately half of its Bitcoin holdings. The company sold 1,400 Bitcoin at an average price of $62,200 per coin, generating approximately $87.1 million.
And this isn't simply a company taking a little profit. Empery says the money will be used to help fund an artificial intelligence data center project in the Midwest. The company still holds 1,514 Bitcoin, but importantly, it has said that it does not currently intend to purchase more and could sell additional Bitcoin if other opportunities appear. Now one company selling Bitcoin is not enough to change the market on its own. But the bigger story is what it represents. During 2025, we saw a wave of companies attempting to copy Bitcoin treasury strategy made famous by strategy. The basic idea was simple. Raise money, buy Bitcoin, hold it on the balance sheet, and hope the value of the Bitcoin rises faster than the company's cost of capital. When it works, it can look brilliant. But not every company is strategy. Many of the companies that jumped into the Bitcoin treasury trend saw their share prices collapse by 90% or more from their 2025 highs. And now, some of those companies are becoming sellers. That creates an interesting problem. One of the bullish arguments for Bitcoin has been that more and more companies will permanently remove coins from the liquid market by holding them in corporate treasuries. But what happens when some of those treasuries need cash? Bitcoin that appeared to be locked away can suddenly return to the market. That doesn't destroy the Bitcoin thesis. It doesn't mean every corporate holder is about to start selling. But it does remind us that corporate Bitcoin holdings are not the same as permanently lost coins. Companies have shareholders, bills, debts, investment opportunities and changing strategies. And in Empery's case, management appears to believe that investing capital into AI data centers may offer a better opportunity than simply continuing to accumulate Bitcoin.
That tells you something about the competition for capital right now. Crypto is not operating in a vacuum. Bitcoin is competing against artificial intelligence, equities, bonds, property, private businesses and every other place where investors can put their money.
And that leads perfectly into our next story, because some analysts believe Bitcoin could reach somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000 by the peak of the next major cycle in 2029 But the mathematics may not be quite as straightforward as the headlines suggest. Veteran trader Peter Brandt has discussed the possibility of Bitcoin reaching between $300,000 and $500,000.
Analysts at Bernstein have also projected $500,000 Bitcoin by 2029, partly based on continued demand through spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Those numbers obviously sound incredible. But history tells us something important. Bitcoin's returns from one cycle peak to the next have been shrinking dramatically. Bitcoin reached around $266 in 2013
In 2017, it reached nearly $20,000.
That was approximately 75 times the previous cycle high. Then in 2021, Bitcoin reached approximately $69,000. That was only around 3.5 times the 2017 high.
Then came the 2025 peak of approximately $126,000.
That was only around 1.8 times the previous cycle high. So the pattern is obvious. Bitcoin has continued making higher highs, but the multiple gain from one peak to the next has been getting dramatically smaller. And the reason makes sense. The larger Bitcoin becomes, the more money it takes to move the price.
Taking Bitcoin from a market value of $10 billion to $100 billion is one thing. Taking it from $1 trillion to $10 trillion is completely different. This does not mean Bitcoin cannot reach $300,000 or $500,000.