Crypto-equity briefing: MARA leads the tape while MSTR and COIN absorb a rough month

Daily Briefing Exchange $MSTR $COIN $MARA

Sawse Editorial · Published May 25, 2026

Key Points

MARA has gained more than 73% over the past 90 days, the strongest price performance in the current briefing universe, while holding 35,303 BTC with an SEC-disclosed fair market value of approximately $2.41 billion as of March 31, 2026.
COIN reported $1.41 billion in quarterly revenue but is down roughly 18% year to date, with all three moving averages sitting above the current price.
MSTR's 30-day decline of nearly 11% runs against a 90-day gain of 22%, a split that reflects the short-term pressure on Bitcoin-leveraged equities in a fear-classified crypto sentiment environment.
IBIT and the broader ETF wrapper category absorbed the same Bitcoin price pressure with lower realized volatility than the operating companies, consistent with their structural role as direct exposure vehicles.

Article

$MARA is the standout in this week's crypto-equity tape. The miner has gained more than 73% over the past 90 days through May 22, a move that separates it cleanly from $MSTR, $COIN, and the ETF wrappers. The rest of the universe is navigating a harder month: $MSTR and $COIN each dropped more than 10% over the past 30 days, IBIT shed 4%, and the macro backdrop reads as fear with Bitcoin dominance at 58.3% as of May 25.

The setup is not uniform across categories. Each ticker is answering a different question right now.

MARA Runs While the Rest Consolidate

$MARA's 90-day gain of 73.27% through May 22 is the headline number in this briefing. The stock is trading above its 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages, a configuration none of the other tickers in this set can match. Year to date, $MARA is up roughly 54%.

The operating picture behind that move includes 35,303 BTC held and 72.2 EH/s of installed hashrate, per $MARA's 10-Q filed May 11, 2026. $MARA disclosed aggregate fair market value of approximately $2.41 billion as of March 31, 2026, per that same filing. The Bitcoin treasury position is material relative to the company's market capitalization, which means Bitcoin price direction remains the dominant variable for $MARA's equity performance even as the miner's hashrate scale grows.

$MARA's annual 10-K risk-factor comparison showed 8 added, 8 removed, and 8 materially changed Item 1A candidates between the 2025 and 2026 filings. That level of risk-factor turnover signals active disclosure management, not a static operating profile.

MSTR Splits the Tape Across Timeframes

$MSTR's price context as of May 22 shows a 30-day decline of 10.86% sitting alongside a 90-day gain of 22.01%. The short-term trend is classified as an uptrend, but the stock is trading below its 20-day and 200-day moving averages while holding above the 50-day. That positioning reflects the compression Bitcoin-leveraged equities face when sentiment turns cautious.

$MSTR's annual 10-K risk-factor comparison between the 2025 and 2026 filings showed 8 added, 8 removed, and 2 materially changed Item 1A candidates. The lower count of materially changed factors relative to $COIN and $MARA suggests $MSTR's disclosure framework is more settled, even as the company continues to operate at the frontier of corporate Bitcoin treasury strategy.

Extended-hours activity for $MSTR on May 22 showed a 0.6% range and volume at essentially zero relative to the trailing 20-day average, per Sawse analysis. No meaningful price discovery was happening outside regular hours.

COIN's Revenue Quarter Lands Into a Down Tape

$COIN reported $1.41 billion in quarterly revenue per its 10-Q filed May 7, 2026. The stock is down roughly 18% year to date through May 22 and is trading below all three tracked moving averages, a configuration that differs from every other ticker in this briefing. The 90-day gain of 7.96% is the weakest in the group outside the ETF wrappers.

$COIN's annual 10-K risk-factor comparison showed 8 added, 8 removed, and 8 materially changed Item 1A candidates between the 2025 and 2026 filings. That is the highest materially changed count in this briefing set, alongside $MARA, and reflects the breadth of regulatory, competitive, and product-mix changes $COIN is disclosing.

Extended-hours activity for $COIN on May 22 showed a 0.7% range and near-zero volume relative to the trailing average. $HOOD, which shares the retail brokerage and crypto-adjacent category, showed a similar 0.6% extended-hours range with negligible volume on the same date.

ETF Wrappers Absorb the Pressure More Quietly

IBIT's 30-day realized volatility of 30.37% annualized is roughly half the realized volatility of $MSTR (72%) and $MARA (69.84%) over the same window. That gap is the clearest expression of what the ETF wrapper structure does: it tracks Bitcoin directly without the operating leverage, financing risk, or miner economics that amplify moves in the equity names.

IBIT is down 4% over the past 30 days and down roughly 13.5% year to date through May 22. The 90-day gain of 11.82% is positive but trails $MARA by more than 60 percentage points over that window. FBTC and ARKB showed similar extended-hours profiles on May 22, with FBTC at a 0.7% range and 0.4x trailing volume and ARKB at a 0.5% range and 0.2x trailing volume, consistent with the low-noise character of the ETF wrapper category.

IBIT's annual 10-K risk-factor comparison showed 8 added, 8 removed, and only 1 materially changed Item 1A candidate between the 2025 and 2026 filings. That is the lowest materially changed count in this briefing set, reflecting the more bounded disclosure scope of a regulated fund wrapper versus an operating company.

GLXY, RIOT, and CLSK Round Out the Picture

$GLXY showed a 2.1% extended-hours range on May 22 with volume at 0.3x the trailing 20-day average, the widest extended-hours range in the briefing set and the only name with a meaningful overnight move of 0.2%. The wider spread of 64 basis points relative to $MSTR's 21 basis points and IBIT's 2 basis points reflects the thinner liquidity profile of the Galaxy Digital listing.

$RIOT and $CLSK both showed 1.1% and 1.4% extended-hours ranges respectively on May 22, each with volume at 0.1x the trailing average. Neither name generated a signal that separates from the broader miner category pattern. $RIOT's 42 basis point average spread and $CLSK's 39 basis point spread are wider than the large-cap names but consistent with mid-cap miner liquidity.

The Macro Frame

The crypto Fear and Greed index read 30 on May 25, classified as fear. Bitcoin dominance sat at 58.3%, indicating the tape is Bitcoin-led rather than altcoin-driven. Bitcoin's 30-day realized volatility was estimated at 26.2% annualized as of May 25, a calm reading relative to the equity-level volatility the operating companies are generating. VIX closed at 16.7 on May 22, a normal equity-volatility regime that is not adding macro pressure on top of the crypto-specific fear reading.

The combination of low realized Bitcoin volatility and fear-classified sentiment is the tension in this briefing. Bitcoin itself is not moving violently, but the sentiment around it is cautious. That gap tends to resolve one way or the other, and the resolution will matter most for the names with the highest Bitcoin sensitivity: $MSTR, $MARA, and the leveraged miner category.

Research only. Not investment advice.

Related Research

Filing Summary $HOOD

Robinhood's new CFO gets an $18 million RSU grant and a $600K salary

The March 24 8-K/A puts numbers on the compensation package for HOOD's incoming principal financial officer, formalizing a transition first disclosed in February.

Filing Summary $MSTR

Strategy sold $1 billion of preferred stock in a week and bought 13,927 BTC with the proceeds

The April 13 8-K shows Strategy's STRC ATM running at full speed, converting preferred equity into Bitcoin at $71,902 per coin.

Filing Summary $MSTR

Strategy's weekly ATM update: $82 million raised, no Bitcoin added

The May 4 8-K shows Strategy sold 492,210 shares of common stock last week but made zero Bitcoin purchases, leaving 818,334 BTC on the balance sheet unchanged.

Filing Summary $MSTR

MSTR's May 8-K: operating results meet a $64 billion Bitcoin position

Strategy's May 5 earnings 8-K lands against a disclosed Bitcoin fair market value of $64.04 billion, making the treasury position the dominant read on every quarterly result.

Insider Activity $MARA

MARA insider tape: three officers sell on the same day, but the signal is thin

A same-day Form 4 cluster from three MARA insiders totals about $621,000, a modest sum against the company's recent 90-day run.

Insider Activity $MSTR

Patten sells again at MSTR, and the pattern holds

Director Jarrod Patten filed two S-coded Form 4 transactions on May 14, totaling roughly $286,000 in proceeds, a small cluster that fits his established selling cadence rather than signaling a directional view.

Source Notes

[1]

MARA gained 73.27% over the past 90 days through May 22 and is up roughly 54% year to date, trading above its 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages.

Primary records

MARA Holdings price history

[2]

MARA held 35,303 BTC and 72.2 EH/s of installed hashrate, and disclosed aggregate fair market value of approximately $2.41 billion as of March 31, 2026, per the 10-Q filed May 11, 2026.

Primary records

[3]

MSTR's 30-day decline of 10.86% sits alongside a 90-day gain of 22.01% as of May 22, with the stock below its 20-day and 200-day moving averages but above the 50-day.

Primary records

Strategy Inc price history

[4]

COIN reported $1.41 billion in quarterly revenue per its 10-Q filed May 7, 2026, and is down roughly 18% year to date through May 22, trading below all three tracked moving averages.

Primary records

[5]

COIN's annual 10-K risk-factor comparison showed 8 materially changed Item 1A candidates, the highest count alongside MARA, while IBIT showed only 1 materially changed candidate.

Compared records

[6]

IBIT's 30-day realized volatility of 30.37% annualized is roughly half the realized volatility of MSTR at 72% and MARA at 69.84%, reflecting the lower amplification of the ETF wrapper structure versus operating companies.

Compared records

[7]

GLXY showed a 2.1% extended-hours range and 64 basis point average spread on May 22, the widest in the briefing set, while RIOT and CLSK each showed ranges of 1.1% and 1.4% with volume at 0.1x trailing averages.

Primary records

Sawse analytical market-activity model

[8]

The crypto Fear and Greed index read 30 on May 25, Bitcoin dominance was 58.3%, Bitcoin 30-day realized volatility was estimated at 26.2% annualized, and VIX closed at 16.7 on May 22.

Primary records

Sawse macro market snapshot

Disclaimer

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