5.47% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoin is now locked in corporate vaults with public companies now holding 1.15 million Bitcoin on their balance sheets. A report published by Bitwise Asset Management showed that publicly traded companies added 50,351 BTC during the first quarter of 2026, making it a 4.6% increase on a quarterly basis. This growth comes during one of the most chaotic periods in modern market history, as the Iranian conflict and resulting energy supply shock led to a new wave of volatility across Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and traditional markets around the world.
Despite the strong quarter of corporate adoption of Bitcoin, when we look beyond the headline number alone, the picture becomes less convincing. The reality is that the backlog was not evenly distributed among many companies, but rather highly concentrated.
Strategy implemented quarter
The strategy added nearly 89,000 BTC in the first quarter alone. The company now owns 818,334 bitcoins as of late April, acquired at an average cost of about $75,537 per coin. Michael Saylor continued to buy every week through the February crisis, through the oil shock, and through every red candle. The strategy reported its full first-quarter earnings today (May 5) after already revealing an unrealized loss of $14.46 billion on its Bitcoin holdings during the quarter, when Bitcoin fell more than 20% in its worst first-quarter performance since 2018.
The strategy now represents approximately 66% of all publicly owned Bitcoin.
Metaplanet rose while MARA fell
Another notable mover in the first quarter was Metaplanet. The Tokyo-listed company acquired 5,075 BTC for nearly $400 million at an average price of around $79,900, bringing its total holdings to 40,177 BTC. That was enough to leapfrog MARA Holdings and claim the third-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury globally, behind Strategy and Twenty One Capital’s 43,514 BTC.
MARA moved in the opposite direction. The mining company sold 15,133 bitcoins between March 4 and 25 for approximately $1.1 billion to manage debt obligations. It started the year with around 53,822 BTC and ended March at 38,689. MARA wasn’t the only mining company to unload its cargo either. Publicly listed miners collectively sold more than 32,000 bitcoins in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding total miner sales for the entire year of 2025.
Conviction versus survival
The difference between who was buying and who was selling in the first quarter tells the real story behind the 1.15 million number. Strategy and Metaplanet were piling up in extreme fear. Miners would filter to stay solvent. One side treated Bitcoin as a long-term reserve asset. The other treated it as a balance sheet liability that needed to be eliminated.
This dichotomy raises a question that the market has not yet fully priced in. The strategy alone holds over 818,000 Bitcoins at an average cost of just 4% below the current price. If Bitcoin falls meaningfully below this basis, the company carrying the full first-quarter accumulation trend will incur billions in unrealized losses while exposed to leverage. Bitcoin adoption by businesses is increasing. But for now, this is growing more out of one company’s conviction than anything else.
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