Do Bitcoin halvings matter? Strategy buys outpace new BTC supply by 700%

Strategy bought seven weeks of new Bitcoin supply in one week, boosting the case for a $400,000 BTC price target if this pace continues.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy is using its preferred stock, STRC, to buy Bitcoin (BTC) at an accelerating pace. But can this create a more powerful supply shock than the halving?

Strategy raised $1.18 billion via MSTR shares to fund Bitcoin purchases last week.

Bitcoin’s next cycle may be driven less by the halving calendar and more by large-scale corporate accumulation.

In the week ending March 15, Strategy bought 22,337 BTC, funded partly by about $1.18 billion from STRC sales.

That is equivalent to roughly seven weeks of global Bitcoin mining output at 450 BTC per day.

The week before, between March 2 and March 8, Strategy bought another 17,994 BTC for $1.28 billion, including roughly $377 million raised through STRC, or around five to six weeks of newly mined BTC.

During peak sessions, such as March 12, STRC-related activity alone was estimated to support purchases of more than 4,000 BTC in a single day, nearly nine days’ worth of average new mining supply.

Broader post-halving data shows corporate treasuries, led by Strategy’s STRC, absorbing Bitcoin at around 2.8 times the rate of new mining supply over many weeks.

Strategy alone bought roughly 1.8 times the BTC mined in shorter periods.

Bitcoin’s traditional four-year cycle assumes that halvings are the market’s main supply shock.

Every four years, the network halves new BTC issuance, reducing miner selling pressure and setting the stage for a bull run, a cycle top, and eventually a bear market.

2026 could be shaping up as a “bear-market year” if the four-year pattern holds, analyst Benjamin Cowen said.

But Strategy’s STRC-funded buying may be changing that pattern. If one company can keep buying more Bitcoin than miners create, the halvings “no longer matter” as the market’s main supply shock, according to trader Grain of Salt.

Related: STRC may help Strategy reach 1M Bitcoin milestone before BlackRock

In that setup, Bitcoin’s next major moves may depend less on its next halving in 2028, and more on whether Strategy can keep reducing the number of potential new wholecoiners.

STRC added a new layer of demand, as Bitcoin retests its six-year ascending trendline support on the monthly chart.

That support zone previously marked key cycle bottoms in 2018, 2020 and 2022. The latest retest came in March, prompting analysts such as Vivek Sen to argue that Bitcoin may be setting up for another major rebound.

Trader Rob Grittins added that a “meaningfully different demand structure” for Bitcoin, led by Strategy’s STRC share sales, may trigger a new bull market after bouncing from the six-year trendline.

The last rebound from the same trendline preceded a roughly 450% rally in BTC price. In today’s value, a similar 450% gain will take Bitcoin to over $400,000, aligning with the target of multiple analysts in the past.

Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings are up 13.2% quarter-to-date in Q1 2026, putting the company on pace for its fastest quarterly accumulation since Q4 2024.

That is despite a prevailing bearish sentiment in the risk-on markets, led by an escalating US–Iran war.

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Source: CoinTelegraph