The corporate race for bitcoin has ended: what awaits the market
The wave of corporate Bitcoin purchases that swept the market in 2024–2025 has completed a full cycle of a classic speculative bubble. An analysis of the purchase dynamics by public holding companies reveals a striking resemblance to Jean-Paul Rodrigue's canonical bubble model. This is not mere coincidence—it is a clear signal of a shift in the market paradigm.
The chart that explains everything
By overlaying Bitcoin's price with the corporate purchases indicator, we see the following picture. For years, this indicator remained near zero, but in 2024, it began a gradual, then explosive, rise, peaking in spring 2025. This was followed by a sharp collapse, a weak rebound, and a sustained decline throughout 2026. This trajectory perfectly mirrors the phases of Rodrigue's bubble: quiet insider accumulation, institutional entry, mass FOMO, and the subsequent phase of denial, fear, and capitulation. We are now witnessing the final stage—the deflation of the bubble.
Risk concentration: a single giant's game
The key danger of the situation is extreme market concentration. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) holds 846,842 BTC, representing 4.03% of the total supply. This is more than the combined holdings of all other top-10 companies: Marathon Digital (38,689 BTC), Twenty One Capital (37,230), Metaplanet (35,102), and others. In essence, the so-called "corporate bubble" consists of small and medium-sized companies blindly copying Strategy's actions. The giant itself stands apart, and even if the trend of imitation fades, its position is unlikely to be affected.
What this means for Bitcoin
The paradox is that Bitcoin itself does not fit neatly into this burst bubble scheme. Its price hovers around $64,000, while the corporate purchases indicator has plummeted from its peak. This is the key nuance: what is deflating is not the asset itself, but the speculative superstructure around the corporate reserve model. In other words, the bubble was the fad of buying Bitcoin for corporate reserves, not Bitcoin itself. The flow of corporate money that fueled the market is gradually drying up, fundamentally altering the demand picture.
My expert assessment: The market is transitioning to a new phase where growth drivers will not be corporate imitators, but more fundamental factors: institutional adoption through ETFs and real network usage. Investors should stop focusing on the "MicroStrategy effect" and concentrate on macroeconomic indicators and on-chain data. The deflation of the speculative superstructure is painful for short-term speculators but healthy for the market's long-term health.