Strategy's STRC Slides to Record Low, Putting the Brakes on Saylor's Bitcoin ATM 🪧

Strategy's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC) fell to a record low of $88 on June 18, trading nearly 11% below its $100 par value and forcing the company to pause at-the-market share issuance used to fund Bitcoin purchases. The slide marks the steepest deviation since the instrument launched in July 2025, with STRC down about 12% over the past month. The stock pays a variable dividend currently yielding an effective 12.9%, adjusted monthly to keep the price near par.

The decline follows a week in which Strategy acquired 1,587 Bitcoin for roughly $100 million, bringing its holdings to 846,842 BTC. Markus Thielen, CEO of 10x Research, attributed the weakness to investor discomfort with that pace of accumulation. "The market would rather see [Strategy] not acquiring more BTC and rather keep the cash for dividend payments," Thielen told Cointelegraph, adding that "traders are seeing the latest BTC acquisition as an unsustainable path for STRC." Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, said "broader risk-off sentiment in crypto markets has weighed on investor appetite," noting that "persistent selling pressure and concerns over Strategy's expanding capital structure and ATM issuance appear to be testing that resilience in the near term."

Strategy's common stock (MSTR) fell 6.35% to $122.81 on Tuesday and dropped about 5% to $116.52 the following day, leaving it down 67% over the past 12 months. Bitcoin has held in the $64,000 to $65,000 range this week, according to the sources. The pressure on STRC follows Strategy's June 1 disclosure that it sold 32 BTC for about $2.5 million in late May to fund STRC distributions, its first Bitcoin sale since it began accumulating in 2022. The company said last week it had built a $1.1 billion cash reserve to cover preferred dividends and debt while still buying 1,587 BTC through separate common-stock sales.

With STRC now below par, Strategy has halted new issuance under its ATM program, removing a lever the firm has relied on to keep adding to its treasury of roughly 4% of Bitcoin's total supply. STRC is also facing competition from Strive's perpetual variable-rate preferred shares (SATA), which are trading at $100 and offering an effective yield of about 13%. Strategy's preferred share designed to deliver an 11.5% dividend at par now yields 12.5% at current prices, and the gap between that yield and SATA's is likely to be watched closely by traders as Bitcoin volatility continues.