Two firms control corporate Bitcoin buys, even as business adoption broadens

River’s category chart shows conventional businesses adding about 20,000 $BTC and other Bitcoin treasury companies adding about 8,000 $BTC in 2026 through Oct. 5, with River’s text reporting 32,800 $BTC sold by large miners.

The roughly 4,000 $BTC separating those figures cannot be read as a direct measure of market selling by everyone else. Positive additions in some categories coexist with reductions in another, and the displayed totals are rounded.

River also reports a 10% increase over the past year in the number of public companies holding Bitcoin.

For demand to diversify, purchases outside the leading treasury firms would need to carry more weight. A growing holder count measures the spread of ownership; repeated purchases by a wider group would demonstrate a broader source of demand.

Purchases compete with other uses of capital

Strive’s Oct. 14 filing records that the company bought 2,822 $BTC during Oct. 12-13 at an average price of approximately $83,266 per coin, including fees and expenses.

For the same two days, it separately reported warrant exercises expected to generate $369.2 million in gross proceeds. It said no traditional warrants issued in its private investment in public equity transaction remained outstanding at the Oct. 13 close.

Those statements do not show that all expected proceeds settled as cash, how much remained after costs, or that those proceeds funded the concurrent purchase.

The absence of remaining traditional PIPE warrants changes that particular financing channel without establishing the size or funding of Strive’s next purchase. The financing disclosure describes a source of capital, subject to the limits of expected gross proceeds.

That latest purchase follows a separate window covered by Strive’s Oct. 13 disclosure. That earlier update reported buying 3,311 $BTC during Oct. 5-9 and holding 32,773 $BTC as of Oct. 9. It also recorded $310.3 million in cash and equivalents on that date, alongside increases in reported common and preferred share counts.

Strategy’s Oct. 12 capital update makes the funding link explicit for its Bitcoin purchases. During Oct. 5-11, it bought 250 $BTC for $21.5 million, bringing holdings to 848,250 $BTC on Oct. 11.

Of that purchase amount, $21 million came from net proceeds of MSTR common-share sales and $500,000 from dollars. In the same reporting period, Strategy spent $192.4 million repurchasing 1,932,145 STRC preferred shares.

The repurchases were not Bitcoin purchases, and the release did not identify their specific funding source, so the figures do not establish that Strategy sold Bitcoin to pay for the buybacks, or that every dollar spent on STRC otherwise would have bought Bitcoin.

Buying back preferred stock returns funds to the holders of those securities, while acquiring Bitcoin adds coins to the treasury. Both can occur in the same week without implying the same demand in the Bitcoin market.

As of Oct. 11, Strategy held $4.88 billion in its USD Reserve intended to support preferred dividends and debt interest, alongside $640.5 million of cash for broader treasury uses.

Merger transfers complicate the demand measure

Strive’s acquisition of Semler Scientific earlier in 2026 illustrates the difference between growth in one issuer’s holdings and fresh buying across the business sector.

The companies’ Jan. 13 shareholder-approval announcement identified 5,048.1 $BTC already held by Semler as part of the all-stock transaction. It also reported Strive’s purchase of 123 $BTC, which brought Strive’s holdings to 7,749.8 $BTC before the acquisition.

The Jan. 16 closing announcement confirmed that the acquisition had completed and put combined holdings at approximately 12,797.9 $BTC. The acquired Semler coins enlarged Strive’s consolidated treasury, but their transfer did not represent another purchase of those coins from the market.

River’s published report and category chart do not explain how its Strategy-and-Strive figure treats the Semler transaction. That leaves no basis for mechanically deducting 5,048.1 $BTC from either reported total, or for presenting a precise, merger-adjusted percentage of fresh buying.

An exact share of fresh buying requires separating purchases and sales from coins transferred between corporate owners. River’s figures establish reported holdings concentration while leaving that transaction-level calculation unresolved.

The two firms’ recent disclosures cover different purchase windows, both extending beyond River’s Oct. 5 snapshot. Adding them to that snapshot would require a new, consistently dated sector account.

For subsequent demand, the useful signals are completed purchases, financing that becomes available cash, and management’s allocation of that cash. Evidence of larger purchases across other businesses would strengthen the case for a broader corporate bid.

Until then, a growing roster of Bitcoin owners and a diversified source of fresh buying remain different propositions.