Michael Saylor and his company Strategy are continuing their offensive on bitcoin

While the company shows over 9 billion dollars in unrealized gains, its founder hints at a new massive purchase.

The price of bitcoin fell slightly on Wednesday, pulling back from a two-week high hit in the previous session after U.S. macroeconomic data showed some signs of weakness, weighing on market sentiment.

Bitcoin dropped 0.7% in the past 24 hours to $68,410.9 by 08:08 ET (12:08 GMT). The largest cryptocurrency pulled back slightly after surging to a two-week high of over $70,000 on Tuesday.

Data on Wednesday showed that U.S. private employment grew less than expected in April, while the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its manufacturing PMI fell to 46.9 in April, sliding further into contractionary territory.

The bleak economic data had some bearing on bitcoin, which tends to trade in tandem with riskier assets such as equities. A slew of upbeat earnings reports had helped to lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 to record highs on Tuesday.

But overall, optimism over bitcoin had been largely driven by a pending decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on several spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposals.

The SEC is expected to make a decision by mid-November on whether to approve or reject the applications for spot bitcoin ETFs, which would allow traders to invest in bitcoin without needing to purchase the cryptocurrency itself.

The approval of a spot bitcoin ETF is widely tipped to open the door for more institutional money to flow into bitcoin, pushing up prices further.

Bitcoin has already surged in 2024, more than doubling from the lows it hit in December 2022. It last traded at all-time highs of over $73,000 in November 2021.

Among other cryptocurrencies, ether dropped 0.4% to $2,119. A judge had ruled on Monday that documents related to the SEC’s case against cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase could be disclosed. This had some bearing on ether, given that Coinbase is also the subject of a separate lawsuit by the SEC.