A dramatic supply crunch is reshaping the Bitcoin market as institutional investors ramp up purchases, hoard millions of coins, and dry up available liquidity.
With daily corporate acquisitions far outpacing mining output, experts warn of a looming imbalance that could redefine Bitcoin’s role from a volatile asset to a strategic reserve. New forecasts predict trillions of dollars in institutional inflows, while long-term holders and governments show no intention of selling.
As centralized exchanges run dry and regulation looms, Bitcoin Bitcoin
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Bitcoin may be on the brink of a structural transformation—one that could permanently limit access to the world’s leading cryptocurrency.
2,000 bitcoins a day?
Bitcoin treasury company Strategy buys over 2,000 bitcoins on average daily, while miners produce only 450 units per day. The real gap is much higher as more institutions join the Bitcoin race. How this impacts the future of Bitcoin remains to be seen, but a new report provides a clue.
UTXO’s Guillaume Girard and Will Owens predict that by the end of 2025, institutions will invest $130 billion in Bitcoin. In 2026, this amount will grow to $300 billion. According to Girard and Owens, the total amount of bitcoins purchased by institutions will hit 4.2 million, which is 20% of Bitcoin’s total supply (if we don’t take millions of lost bitcoins into consideration).
According to the Bitcoin Treasuries website, as of May 2025, 3.35 million bitcoins were held in corporate, state, and various other treasuries. Only nearly 800,000 bitcoins are held on corporate balance sheets now.
How is Bitcoin getting sold off from the circulation?
According to Strategy chair Michael Saylor, the company is not going to sell any of its bitcoins. Assuming Strategy and other entities copying its playbook won’t be selling bitcoins, then we should acknowledge that Bitcoin’s supply is shrinking at an ever-increasing speed.
As governments, along with private and public companies, continue to buy bitcoins without the intention of selling, more coins will disappear from circulation at an ever-growing speed.
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju claims that Bitcoin’s annual deflation rate is -2.23% thanks to Strategy’s activity. In the first third of 2025, corporations purchased 196,000 BTC while the mined amount is only around 60,044 BTC. The amount acquired by long-term holding companies already outperformed the entire amount of bitcoins projected to be mined in 2025 (164,250 BTC).
As the new Bitcoin treasuries continue to occur (Nakamoto and 21 Capital are the latest high-profile launches), #Bitcoin will increasingly lose liquid supply. The market situation may drastically change.
According to the UTXO forecast, 2026 may see less volatility, increased transparency or reserves, and a change of Bitcoin’s role from a seized asset to a strategic reserve asset. Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (“BTCfi”) platforms will allegedly get bigger. The new era may see drastically lower circulation of Bitcoin.