Saylor: Selling 32 $BTC Was Just Business, Not Heresy — Strategy's in the "Digital Credit" Game Now

Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, said the company's recent Bitcoin sale was a structural necessity tied to its "digital credit" business, not a retreat from his long-running "never sell your Bitcoin" stance. In a June 1 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Strategy disclosed it had offloaded 32 BTC, its first reported Bitcoin sale since 2022. Speaking with Cointelegraph at the BTC Prague conference, Saylor framed the move as essential to supporting the credit instruments the company issues against its holdings. "If the company's policy is that we won't sell the Bitcoin, then the credit won't have value and the equity won't have value," Saylor said, adding: "The company is in the business of selling digital credit. The credit is backed by capital. Bitcoin is capital."

Saylor described products such as Strategy's STRC preferred stock as "digital credit" instruments backed by the company's Bitcoin balance sheet, used to raise capital to acquire more Bitcoin. He positioned digital credit as a "trillion-dollar opportunity" in finance and compared it directly to a transformation of traditional credit markets. "I see Bitcoin as the digital transformation of capital. I see STRC as the digital transformation of credit," Saylor said, noting that digital credit products can offer yields of up to 8%, which he said is three to four times more than traditional savings accounts. He pointed to projects including Saturn and Apyx as examples of yield-bearing products built on top of digital credit markets.

That thesis was tested on June 4, when Apyx Finance's dividend-backed synthetic stablecoin, apxUSD, depegged to as low as $0.90 as $BTC traded below $63,000 and STRC shares fell below their $100 par value. According to Apyx, the decline in STRC, the stablecoin's primary collateral asset, reduced the protocol's reserve value. The company also cited falling $BTC prices, thinning liquidity, and derivative-driven market dynamics as factors behind the depeg. As of press time, apxUSD traded at $0.96, below its $1 peg, according to CoinGecko. The full interview with Saylor is slated for release on Cointelegraph's YouTube channel in the coming days.