Bitcoin’s Next Big Buyer May Not Be Strategy, Matt Hougan Says

Bitcoin (BTC) may be entering a new demand cycle as Matt Hougan says Strategy is losing its role as the market’s main corporate buyer.

Key Points:

Bitcoin Buyer Shift

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Hougan said Strategy’s place in the Bitcoin market has changed after the company adopted a framework for STRC, which lets it sell Bitcoin periodically to meet dividend obligations.

The change does not mean Hougan expects Michael Saylor’s company to become a major seller of the asset.

He said there is no mechanism forcing Strategy to sell more than a few billion dollars of Bitcoin each year, and a price recovery could still leave the company as a net buyer.

Still, Hougan said Strategy is unlikely to drive demand with the same force it brought during the last market cycle.

Hougan said Bitcoin’s buyer base has changed repeatedly, moving from cypherpunks to Asian investors, U.S. retail traders, the Grayscale Investments Bitcoin Trust, and later Strategy.

He now expects the next phase to be led by institutions, including global banks, asset managers, pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and financial advisers.

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Institutional Bitcoin Demand

Hougan said the shift is already visible in traditional finance, with Morgan Stanley launching proprietary Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and Wells Fargo adding BTC exposure to model portfolios.

He also pointed to Texas, which became the first U.S. state to fund a strategic BTC reserve.

Bitcoin ETFs have still drawn more than $50 billion since their 2024 launch, despite outflows in 2026, and Hougan said the products are now available on most major financial adviser platforms.

HashKey Group Senior Researcher Tim Sun told CryptoPotato that a slower Strategy buying pace would not necessarily hurt Bitcoin.

Sun said it could reduce the supply and demand distortion created by Strategy’s financing-driven purchases, allowing Bitcoin to form a stronger price floor based on broader market demand. That matters because Strategy’s Bitcoin accumulation has been one of the clearest corporate narratives of the current cycle, turning Saylor’s company from a software business into a leveraged proxy for Bitcoin exposure.

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