Strategy's 843,775 BTC stash may grow as Saylor signals new buy

Michael Saylor's latest tracker post revived expectations Strategy will announce another Bitcoin purchase Monday, ending a five-week pause that left its 843,775-coin treasury untouched. The company, formerly MicroStrategy, has not added a coin since early July, its longest stretch without a buy in nearly two years.

The pause reflects a broken funding loop rather than lost conviction, Chief Executive Phong Le said, as the company spent $25 million last week buying back 288,930 shares of its STRC preferred stock at an average of $86.52 against a $100 stated value — a move he called "an attractive allocation of capital."

Strategy's 843,775 coins cost $63.68 billion at an average of $75,476 each, and at Bitcoin's recent price near $63,900 they are worth about $53.9 billion, leaving the company roughly $9.8 billion underwater. Its mNAV, which compares the company's valuation against its Bitcoin, has fallen to about 1.0 from 3.4 at the November 2024 peak, according to a Standard Chartered note dated July 10. At that level, selling stock to buy coins no longer rewards shareholders, so the buying stopped.

A resumption Monday would mark the first purchase since early July and could lift Bitcoin, which trades near $63,900, roughly half its $126,000 all-time high from October. Standard Chartered kept its $100,000 year-end forecast, arguing Strategy should not need to sell more Bitcoin if it explains its approach clearly.

Why the buying stopped

For years Strategy ran a loop that built the company: sell new MSTR shares, use the cash to buy Bitcoin, and because the stock traded above the value of the coins behind it, shareholders ended up with more Bitcoin per share after every round. That premium has collapsed. Standard Chartered calculated mNAV at roughly 1.0 in its July 10 note, down from well above that between 2020 and mid-2025. At 1.0, a dollar of new stock buys exactly a dollar of Bitcoin, leaving shareholders slightly worse off after costs.

The company still owes its preferred dividends whether it buys Bitcoin or not. STRC alone has about $10 billion outstanding, its 12 percent dividend keeps coming due whatever the Bitcoin price does, and the dollar reserve — now at an all-time high of $3.75 billion after a $525 million top-up from common stock sales — exists to keep those payments funded. That reserve equals roughly 25 months of expected preferred dividend payments.

What Bitcoin loses without Strategy buying

Strategy holds about 4 percent of every Bitcoin that will ever exist, more than any other company. It had already stepped back before the pause, selling 32 coins in late May — its first sale since 2022 — then another 3,588 coins for about $216 million between June 29 and July 5 at average prices around $60,000 against the $75,476 it paid.

Wider corporate buying had already thinned before Strategy went quiet. Glassnode's June 10 report showed treasury companies went from buying more than $500 million on multiple days in April and May to almost nothing since the start of June. Bitcoin trades near $63,900, down 26 percent year to date and roughly half its $126,080 all-time high from October 2025.

If Bitcoin recovers and the stock trades back above the value of the coins behind it, selling shares to buy Bitcoin starts rewarding shareholders again, and Strategy has given no reason to think it would not restart. Nothing in the July 27 announcement retires the model; it just funds the obligations until the model works again. Until then, Bitcoin has lost its biggest corporate buyer, and the price has to climb without the company that spent five years buying almost every week.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.