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Your post sparked my curiosity and I wondered how much buying 22,500 bitcoin and Coinbase would push the price up on the order book.

The answer is: a whole lot. To buy even just 4300 bitcoin off Coinbase's current orderbook (the max it'll show), would push the btc/usd price up from $88k to $155k.

Of course, Coinbase is only about 5% of global market share for bitcoin trading volume (accordingt o ChatGPT). So, assuming the orderbooks are similar, that would be saying 86,000 bitcoins would move the market from $88k to $155k.

So what would be the equivalent for 22,500 when factoring in that Coinbase is only 5% of volume? Using Coinbase's orderbook, an equivalent purchase of 22,500 bitcoin would move the market from $88k to about $99k. Smaller, but still significant and much larger than any moves resulting from a Saylor purchase.

If Saylor's buys truly don't move the market consistently in any direction, that suggests that exchange orderbooks are only a small fraction of the latent supply of bitcoins in the market, since Saylor is buying OTC.

The exchanges themselves may also be willing to sell Bitcoin on a very elastic basis, since they probably don't have a strong preference for either dollars or Bitcoin, they make money off volume and they only need enough holdings to cover withdrawal events.

that suggests that exchange orderbooks are only a small fraction of the latent supply of bitcoins in the market, since Saylor is buying OTC.

I'd say if one was genuinely interested in my somewhat lighthearted analysis of Strategy's actions, this is a pretty good conclusion.

I am curious how one would discover if there is some trend between what we see as "the price" (my impression is that "the price" is usually taken from an average of various exchanges' APIs -- or just one exchange if you are poor) and the trades that happen OTC.

Do the prices at which OTC trades are confirmed lead the exchange prices? Do they lag? Do they fluctuate somewhat independently?

If the OTC market has so much more volume than exchanges, do they almost operate as separate markets? Clearly there is some connection, else all the exchanges would be constantly getting wiped out.

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Your post has inspired me to dive deeper into this subject, which is all the more enabled because you've done the public service of trawling through Saylor's X feed to get the list of purchase announcements and their sizes. Amazing work!

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Here is the full data series of all Saylor's bitcoin buy announcements in 2025 (and the first few in 2026). The dollar numbers are links to his announcements. I also added the average close on Binance for the 7 days before each announcement.

Date$ (millions)BTCRateWeekly avg close
20 Jan 20262130223059528494996
12 Jan 20261250136279151991747
05 Jan 2026?1287???89194
29 Dec 202510912298856887742
15 Dec 2025980106459209890931
08 Dec 2025963106249061590290
01 Dec 2025121308996089934
17 Nov 2025836817810217199266
10 Nov 202550487102557103383
03 Nov 202546397114771110799
27 Oct 202543390111053110526
20 Oct 202519168112051109915
13 Oct 202527220123561118476
29 Sep 202522196113048111199
22 Sep 2025100850117344116030
15 Sep 202560525114562114324
08 Sep 20252171955111196110699
02 Sep 20254494048110981110038
25 Aug 20253573081115829114534
18 Aug 202551430119666118935
11 Aug 202518155116401116297
29 Jul 2025246021021117256118580
21 Jul 20257406220118940118348
14 Jul 20254734225111827114066
30 Jun 20255324980106801106915
23 Jun 202526245105856103896
16 Jun 2025105010100104080107418
09 Jun 20251101045105426104716
02 Jun 202575705106495106566
26 May 20254274020106237108264
19 May 20257657390103498103887
12 May 202513401339099,856100537
05 May 202518018959516795278
28 Apr 202514201535592,73793092
21 Apr 202555665568478584563
14 Apr 202528634598261881452
31 Mar 202519202204886,96985499
24 Mar 202558469118452984543
17 Mar 2025111308298182460
03 Mar 20250087696
24 Feb 20251990203569751496484
18 Feb 20250096746
10 Feb 202574276339725597381
03 Feb 202500101805
27 Jan 2025110010107105596104036
21 Jan 2025110011000101191101324
13 Jan 202524325309597295810
06 Jan 202510110709400497266

If these purchases aren't on the order book, then do actual price movements only come from retail, or have I missed something?

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Sort of(?)

I think the main point to recognize is that when we say "price", we usually mean some average of the last traded price from various exchanges.

So in that sense, it's mostly driven by retail (or institutional traders who use the exchanges)

However, OTC and the exchanges are connected because in the end there is a single underlying stock of bitcoin, and the assets are the same. If the "price" via either OTC or exchange get too out of balance, they should get arbitraged back towards each other.

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It hurts my brain to think too much about.

max supply = 21 million coins...right?!

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