Morning Minute: Saylor and Tom Lee Buy Big

By Tyler Warner

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors fall 1-3%; BTC at $90,600
• The CFTC to pilot tokenized collateral with BTC, ETH & USDC used as collateral
• Saylor ($963M) and Tom Lee ($429M) both buy big last week
• BlackRock files S-1 for ETH staking ETF ‘ETHB’
• Stripe rolls out stablecoin payments across EVM networks

💰 Saylor and Tom Lee Go Big on Bitcoin and Ethereum

Two of the biggest names in crypto investing bought big last week.

And proved that they still have the ability to raise capital during market downturns.

📌 What Happened

Both Michael Saylor and Tom Lee quietly loaded up last week.

First, Saylor’s Strategy added $963M in BTC (10,624 BTC to be exact) to its balance sheet, marking one of its largest buys since the summer.

That total is more than the entire amount of BTC bought by Saylor over the past 3 months.

Then came Tom Lee, whose firm BitMine boosted its Ethereum holdings to $12B by acquiring another $429M in ETH (138,452 ETH to be exact).

Perhaps most notable, BitMine added to its cash position during the week as well, now holding $1B in cash (up from $800M).

🗣️ What They’re Saying

"BitMine provided its latest holdings update for Dec 8th, 2025: $13.2 billion in total crypto + "moonshots": -3,864,951 ETH at $3,139 per ETH

- 192 Bitcoin (BTC)

- $36 million stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) (“moonshots”) and

- total cash of $1.0 billion." - BitMNR on X

“MSTR raised $1B in one week, the same amount it took them 4 months to raise in 2020. The exponential trend continues” - James Van Straten, Coindesk analyst, on X

🧠 Why It Matters

There has been a lot of concern about the DAT trade unwinding, and neither Saylor nor Tom Lee have been spared from that conversation.

The heat turned up even more recently when it was widely speculated that Strategy would start to sell BTC if and when its mNAV dipped below 1.

Well, it got very close to 1 in this latest downturn - and he’s not selling.

In fact, the opposite. He’s buying and in big size.

It’s relieving for the MSTR bulls out there and confidence-building for those concerned about how Saylor would act in this downturn.

But what’s more notable, especially from a near-term trading perspective, is Tom Lee’s ability to raise capital during this ETH downturn.

BMNR stock dipped over 60% from local highs, and yet, the team has been able to keep slamming its ATM and raising cash.

This has enabled Tom to buy a ton of ETH and grow his cash pile.

And for perspective, his $429M buy is about 2x the size of Saylor’s $1B buy in market cap perspective (BTC is 5x ETH in market cap).

The ETH / BTC ratio is up 4% on the month now and looking like it’s ready to break out of a 3-month downturn.

That matters because ETH breaking out typically means some form of “alt season” rally against Bitcoin where multiple tokens see relatively large gains in a short period.

The fact that Tom is still sitting on $1B in cash (and is motivated to lower his average purchase price from $4k/ETH on this dip) means that he is likely to remain a heavy buyer - which is good for ETH, and perhaps, for alts.

Tom Lee and crew may just deliver the Santa Rally that crypto bulls are hoping for…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly red; BTC -1% at $90,600; ETH even at $3,130, BNB -2% at $888, SOL -3% at $133
• ZEC (+11%), ADA (+3%) and DASH (+3%) led top movers
• The CFTC will pilot tokenized collateral with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC, allowing tokenized versions of crypto and stablecoins to be used as collateral in derivatives markets.
• BlackRock filed an S-1 for its new ETH staking ETF ‘ETHB’ which will track the returns of spot ETH and also add rewards from the portion of their staked ETH holdings
• Tether invested in Italian humanoid-robotics startup Generative Bionics
• The number of Bitcoin wallets holding more than 0.1 BTC has dropped over the last two years
• The SEC concluded its investigation into Ondo Finance with no charges filed
• PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD saw a 224% surge in circulating supply over the last three months
• The U.K. government unveiled a new anti-corruption strategy aimed at crypto-related crime
• Stripe rolled out stablecoin payments settled in USD across Ethereum, Base & Polygon

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

• Saylor’s Strategy bought 10,624 BTC (~$962.7M) last week at a ~$90,615 average
• Tom Lee’s BMNR bought $429M in ETH last week and upped their cash holdings to $1B

In Memes / Onchain Movers

• Memecoin leaders are mixed and mostly flat; DOGE -1%, Shiba +1%, PEPE -2%, PENGU +1%, BONK +1%, TRUMP -1%, SPX -8%, and FARTCOIN -7%
• Franklin (+40%), 67 (+23%) and Kabuto (+54%) led notable movers
• Avici fell 25% after sharing latest revenue numbers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

• XGames teased a Rekt Drinks partnership and rocked a Rektguy PFP on X
• Farcaster shifted from a social platform to wallets and trading after cofounder Dan Romero said the social network never found pmf
• Stable, a stablecoin chain backed by Bitfinex & powered by UDDT, launched its mainnet and STABLE token yesterday, debuting at $1.6B fdv ($300M mc)
• MegaETH announced that Frontier will go live next week for builders
• Talus Labs’ US token will go live on Binance Alpha on Dec 11
• Myriad’s CEO posted a MYR token update clarifying the RUG snapshot handling, a DCM license pursuit for US operations, MYR use cases & timing decisions

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly flat; Punks even at 30 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 5.31, BAYC -3% at 5.5 ETH; Hypurr’s -12% at 450 HYPE
• Beeple’s ‘Regular Animals’ fell 30% to a 7.5 ETH floor
• Fwogstr launched as the latest Strategy token, sits at $300k mc; FWOGS NFTs fell 43% to 0.124 ETH
• Mocaverse announced a reputation platform live on MocaChain testnet

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