Autor Cointelegraph By Helen Partz

Michael Saylor’s Strategy resumed buying Bitcoin after a two-week pause while continuing to repurchase its STRC preferred stock.Strategy acquired 950 Bitcoin (BTC) for $75.7 million at an average price of $79,670 per coin between Monday and Sunday, according to a Form 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.The purchase brought Strategy’s holdings to 846,000 BTC, acquired for about $63.8 billion at an average cost of $75,416 per Bitcoin, including fees and expenses. With Bitcoin trading at $84,925 at the time of publication, Strategy was sitting on an unrealized gain of about $8.05 billion on its holdings.The purchase comes as Strategy balances its Bitcoin accumulation strategy with managing a growing collection of preferred securities and billions of dollars in cash reserves.Shares of Strategy, the largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company in the world, rose 7.4% to $165.2 in pre-market trading on Monday, according to Yahoo Finance data. Strive, the world’s fifth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, also announced Bitcoin buys on Monday. It added 1,355 BTC last week, bringing its total to 26,355 coins. Its shares rose 6.44% to $32.03.Strategy spends $174 million buying back STRCStrategy continued buying back its perpetual preferred stock, STRC, repurchasing about 1.77 million shares for $174 million during the same week.STRC rose 0.35% to $98.85 during Monday’s pre-market trading.Strategy said it still had $875.1 million available under its preferred-stock repurchase program and $1 billion remaining under its MSTR share repurchase program.Related: REX launches 2x leveraged ETF tied to Bitcoin treasury firm StriveThe company also reported no sales under its at-the-market offering programs between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20, meaning it did not raise funds through those programs during the period.Strategy’s deployable cash dropsStrategy’s ”USD Cash“ balance fell nearly 20% to $1.05 billion from $1.30 billion a week earlier, when the company reported its previous cash balance.Its separate ”USD Reserve“ declined to $5.04 billion from $5.10 billion as Strategy used $57.4 million to pay preferred-stock dividends and interest on outstanding debt.Strategy uses USD Cash for broader treasury purposes, including Bitcoin purchases and capital management, while its USD Reserve is intended primarily to support preferred-stock dividends and debt interest.Magazine: Bitcoin treasury firms can outperform BTC… but is the risk worth taking?

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Elon Musk-owned social media platform X has sued the alleged operators of a network of Bitcoin-focused accounts, seeking to recover at least $278,000 in creator payouts it says they obtained by manipulating engagement.X filed a lawsuit in the High Court of England and Wales on Thursday against Vivek Kumar Sen, Zamyang Sherpa and unidentified account operators, alleging they fraudulently obtained at least 207,384 British pounds ($278,000) from its creator revenue-sharing program. The court filing is available on X’s Transparency Center.The company claims the defendants coordinated multiple accounts to boost engagement by reposting and liking one another’s content and publishing identical or substantially similar posts, creating what the company described as a “false appearance of genuine, human communication and interaction.”X suspended the accounts on Aug. 18 over what it called creator revenue-sharing fraud and platform manipulation.X links six accounts to two defendantsThe lawsuit identifies six accounts enrolled in X’s revenue-sharing program: @Vivek4real_, @Bitcoin_Teddy, @saylordocs, @TrendingBitcoin, @Kalshibacktest and @PolyBackTest.The filing links Stripe accounts associated with the first three profiles to Sen and those associated with the other three to Sherpa. The accounts joined the program between August 2023 and February 2026.Six X accounts and their associated Stripe account names listed in the court filing. Source: XThe network allegedly extended beyond those six accounts. X named @BTC_Vibes, @MrSuperBitcoin and @Laserlump, claiming they repeatedly liked, replied to and reposted content from the defendants’ accounts to manufacture engagement.How the alleged scheme generated moneyUnder X’s former creator revenue-sharing program, eligible creators received a share of the platform’s revenue based on the engagement their posts generated from other users.The filing cites an Aug. 5 example in which @Vivek4real_ and @TrendingBitcoin allegedly published substantially similar posts within 11 seconds of each other.X retired the revenue-sharing program on Sept. 7 and began rolling out access to its replacement, Original Content Rewards, the following day.Related: Cardano’s IOG warns users to avoid YouTube channel amid apparent hijackIn addition to the alleged fraudulent payouts, X says it expects at least 75,000 British pounds ($100,000) in investigation and remediation costs, bringing its claimed and projected losses to at least 282,384 pounds before interest and legal costs.Cointelegraph sought comment through an email address linked to Sen in the filing but had not received a response by publication. Sherpa could not be reached for comment.Magazine: Who needs CLARITY anyway? ARB could see 70X increase: Hodler’s Digest

Banks are rapidly expanding their presence in Europe’s regulated crypto market, with traditional lenders now accounting for nearly one in four providers listed under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework (MiCA).The number of banks on the EU’s MiCA crypto provider list doubled to about 80 from roughly 40 between June 26 and Sept. 16, according to a Cointelegraph analysis of MiCA register data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).The overall number of listed crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) rose from 243 to 349 over the period, but non-bank providers lost ground in relative terms, with their share falling from about 84% to 77%.While non-bank providers still dominate the register and grew in absolute numbers, banks expanded much faster, increasing their share from around 17% in late June to nearly 23% in September.German banks pile into cryptoGermany drove much of the banking expansion, with dozens of cooperative and commercial banks appearing on ESMA’s MiCA register.New names include Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, which on Wednesday announced plans to launch digital asset custody services for institutional and corporate clients in Europe. A Deutsche Bank spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the bank expects to receive regulatory approval for the offering under MiCA in October.Related: Binance brushes off Lagarde MiCA speculation, reaffirms Europe commitmentThe trend extends beyond Europe’s biggest banking groups. Germany’s additions include numerous Volksbank, Raiffeisenbank and VR Bank institutions, showing that regulated crypto services are spreading into the country’s regional cooperative banking network rather than remaining limited to large international banks.Banks have a different route into MiCAUnlike crypto companies that must apply for CASP authorization, banks can provide crypto services under MiCA through a separate notification procedure.Under Article 60 of MiCA, a credit institution may provide crypto-asset services if it submits the required information to its home regulator at least 40 working days before providing those services for the first time.The notification route gives banks a way to expand into crypto without going through the standard CASP authorization process.Magazine: Is there any chance left to save the CLARITY Act?Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.