The Hashpoint for October 20, 2026

Bitcoin Hashpoint, October 20, 2026

Strategy put $8.74 into its own preferred stock for every $1.00 it put into Bitcoin last week. Monday's filing shows $193.1 million spent retiring 1,938,780 STRC shares against $22.1 million for 267 coins at $82,900, the widest split this publication has recorded; the September 21 filing ran $2.30 to $1.00 and the September 28 filing $1.06. On the same Monday the spot funds took in $526.7 million, with BlackRock's IBIT alone creating $665.2 million. Bitcoin traded at $81,383 on Coinbase this morning, down 0.56% from Monday's $81,838 close, 1.236 times the power-law floor of $65,869 and 0.519 times the median of $156,830.

STRC and Strategy

The preferred closed Monday at $98.62, up $0.90 from Friday's $97.72, and the discount narrowed to $1.38. The box counts 108 sessions below par and 158 calendar days since the last close at or above $100 on May 14. Effective yield runs 12.17% on the 12.00% declared rate, and the box reads issuance as closed.

Cash paid for the entire $193.1 million. Strategy sold 140,872 common shares for $22.0 million and spent that on the coins. The board lifted the preferred repurchase authorization to $3.0 billion from $2.0 billion, with $1.16 billion left as of October 18. USD Cash fell to $447.3 million from $640.5 million a week earlier, and the USD Reserve stands at $4.83 billion after $45.5 million of preferred dividends. At last week's pace, the cash covers a little over two more weeks of STRC purchases.

The repurchase week also contained Friday's slide from $99.53 to $97.72 on the MSCI decision. Hashpoint's own analysis holds that the monthly repricing schedule leaves the largest institutional bid impaired longer than a real-time rate would. The filing now prices that impairment: of $215.2 million deployed, 10.3% reached the coin.

Holdings stand at 848,517 coins at a stated $75,446, $64.02 billion in cost. The common rose 2.7% to $140.53 in Monday trading, by Invezz's count. The next fifty-cent STRC payment falls October 31.

ETF flows and supply pressure

Monday answered the flow question in one print. Farside records $526.7 million of net creations, the largest session since September 22's $714.7 million. IBIT took $665.2 million, FBTC redeemed $83.6 million, GBTC redeemed $54.9 million, and every other fund sat flat. Cumulative net flow reached $57.476 billion.

The box's supply pressure index reads 1.81, up from 1.79 on a lower price, because its window still ends at Friday's flows. Tomorrow's run adds Monday. On that arithmetic, the thirty-day net climbs to about $2.25 billion, and Thursday's removal of September 21's $998.95 million cuts it to about $1.25 billion. One IBIT day replaced a little over half of the autumn's largest session.

Exchange balances read 2,679,759 coins on October 18, down 39,022 over thirty days.

Macro and yields

The ten-year closed Monday at 5.15% on the FRED series, up six basis points from Friday's 5.09%, and Trading Economics puts it near 5.13% this morning. The two-year reads 4.79% and the thirty-year 5.46%. The real yield rose four basis points to 2.78%. The dollar index finished Monday at 101.946, up 0.11%, and slipped below 101.80 early Tuesday, per FXStreet.

September housing starts and building permits print at 8:30 this morning, and pending home sales at 10:00. The Fed stays in blackout until the October 27 to 28 meeting, where Trading Economics prices an 83% chance of no change and a 94% chance of a December hike.

The crowd warmed while the structure cooled. Market mood, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index from https://www.google.com/url?q=http://alternative.me&source=gmail&ust=1792578429935000&sa=E, rose to 59 in Greed from 53. The Hashpoint structural composite slipped to 33 in Fear from 36, so the gap widened to 26 points from 17.

Power law and network

Monday closed at $81,838, down 0.21%, the fourth straight close above $80,000. The coin sits 2.23% lower on the week by crypto.news' ticker. MVRV reads 1.52. CoinWarz holds difficulty at 140.58 trillion and now estimates a 5.77% rise to 148.69 trillion on October 29, up from Monday's 4.96% estimate, with blocks arriving every 9 minutes 27 seconds. The box reads hashrate at 1,066 exahash per second, up 29.0% over thirty days, and counts 77,785 blocks to the halving, cycle four 62.96% complete.

The Daily Experiment

This is the Hashpoint's own experiment, run each morning on the box's own data. If STRC keeps the last ten sessions' pace of minus 8.6 cents a session, it never reaches par, and the box's reading of the escalator rule puts the next rate at 12.25%, up from 12.00% (as of the October 19 close).

The pace halved overnight from minus 16.9 cents because Monday's 90-cent gain entered the window. For the if-clause to fail, the preferred needs to average a 13.8-cent gain across the next ten sessions. Monday supplied that in one day while the ten-year rose six basis points, which points at the buyback and not the curve as the force on the price. The yield shock agrees: the ninety-day link between the ten-year and Bitcoin reads weak, an r-squared of 0.045 across 61 sessions. The 12.25% reflects the box's reading of the rule, not a company statement.

Scenario	If	Then	Since yesterday
STRC to par	Pace holds at -$0.086 a session	Never reaches par; rule
reads 12.25%	Was -$0.169 on $97.72
ETF absorption	30-day pace holds	700 BTC a day, 1.56x issuance, 143
days to 100,000	Was 699, 1.55x; Monday not yet in
Yield shock	10-year rises 25 bp	BTC -2.48%, r-squared 0.045, n 61
Was -2.57%, 0.047
Power-law clock	BTC holds $81,838	Floor meets price June 23, 2027,
247 days	Was 251 days on $82,007
Strategy cushion	BTC at $81,838	8.5% above cost; halves at $78,644
Was 8.7%, $78,728
Theory drift	BTC flat 90 days	Family median $103,132, gap -20.7%
Was $103,066, -20.4%, same models

The Bull View

• CoinDesk: the spot funds drew $526.6 million Monday, their biggest day in nearly a month, all of it from IBIT's $665.2 million
• Cointelegraph: Strategy added 267 coins and raised its preferred buyback authorization to $3 billion from $2 billion
• CoinDesk: Strategy's common neared a golden cross weeks after Bitcoin's own on September 8
• KuCoin: CryptoQuant sees early signs of a market bottom as selling pressure eases
• Bloomberg: Bitcoin rebounded above $82,000 Monday as oil's retreat lifted risk appetite
• Yahoo Finance: CryptoQuant's Ki Young Ju cites $58 billion of ETF inflows and 1.3 million coins in treasury companies against a $10,000 call

The bull case leans on a single fund's return to size and on a balance sheet that keeps buying coins every week.

The Bear View

• Yahoo Finance: Bloomberg Intelligence's Mike McGlone says Bitcoin could fall toward $10,000 if U.S. stocks drop 20%
• crypto.news: Bitcoin slid 1.2% toward $81,730 as Glassnode traced the selling to perpetual futures traders
• CoinDesk: the ether funds lost $103.3 million, a fourth straight day of outflows
• CoinDesk: October flows stay about $90.5 million negative even after Monday
• Cointelegraph: Strategy spent nearly nine times as much on STRC as on Bitcoin
• Trading Economics: the ten-year held near 5.13% with a 94% chance of a December hike priced

The bear case leans on a rate path that keeps rising and on a largest buyer that now spends most of its cash on its own paper.

The Hashpoint read

Bitcoin sits at 1.236 times its floor and 0.519 times its median, $15,514 above the floor. The spring held its position again, and the two numbers moved in opposite directions: the ten-year rose six basis points and STRC rose 90 cents.

The bulls have the flow right. A $526.7 million day clears the $100 million bar this publication set yesterday by a factor of five. They lean on one fund to carry it, and IBIT's $665.2 million had to cover redemptions at FBTC and GBTC.

The bears have the balance sheet right. An 8.74-to-1 split confirms the accumulation throttle in Strategy's own filing, and $447.3 million of cash pays for roughly two more weeks at that pace. They have the price wrong so far: four closes above $80,000. The preferred's gain came from corporate cash, a repair and not a rerating.

Three markers carry into Wednesday. STRC: a close at or above $99.00 with the ten-year near 5.15% says the buyback sets the price; a close under Friday's $97.72 says $193.1 million bought a weekend. Today's fund print: a second creation above $100 million says Monday reached beyond one fund, and a redemption leaves IBIT's day standing alone. Tomorrow's box run: supply pressure above 2.0 once Monday enters the window, the last reading before September 21 leaves on Thursday.

Data: Bitcoin Hashpoint dashboard (power-law bands, STRC, supply pressure, exchange balances, network state, Daily Experiment, Fear and Greed composite, synthesis), Strategy Form 8-K of October 19, 2026 (SEC), Farside Investors, Coinbase spot via the box, FRED, CoinWarz, Trading Economics, FXStreet, The Rio Times, Crypto Fear & Greed Index by https://www.google.com/url?q=http://alternative.me&source=gmail&ust=1792578429935000&sa=E, and reporting from CoinDesk, Bloomberg, Cointelegraph, Invezz, Crypto Briefing, crypto.news, KuCoin and Yahoo Finance. Nothing here is investment advice.