Saylor's $100B Magic Trick Makes BTC Disappear: MSTR Cracks Triple Digits

Strategy (MSTR) shares plunged below $100 on Wednesday for the first time since March 1, 2024, falling as low as $97.30 roughly 30 minutes after the opening bell and recently trading at $98.05, a nearly 5.5% intraday drop, according to Yahoo Finance. The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based firm is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, and its common stock is now down roughly 20% in the past week and more than 38% over the past month. One source separately reported MSTR closing at $97.79, down 5.82% on the day, while Decrypt recorded an intraday low of $92.28 and a 9.35% session decline to $94.13, tagging both as 52-week lows. The 52-week high remains $457.22.

Bitcoin itself slid to a two-week low of $59,200 during the selloff before recovering toward $60,935, per reporting cited across the day's coverage. $BTC last set an all-time high above $126,000 in October and has since lost more than 50%. Selling pressure on MSTR and STRC intensified after Strategy disclosed its first BTC sale since 2022 in early June, breaking the "buy and never sell" ethos long championed by co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor.

Strategy's STRC preferred share, designed to trade near its $100 par value, fell to a low of $82.53 last week and hit $80.84 on Wednesday per Decrypt, a 7.41% session drop and a fresh 52-week low. Another source recorded STRC at $84.35, down 3.4% on the day. STRC has fueled billions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin purchases for the firm so far this year, and its slide has fueled fears the company may have to sell more BTC to meet dividend obligations.

The firm raised $300 million this week entirely by issuing common stock, lifting its USD reserve to $1.4 billion and generating roughly $335 million for additional Bitcoin buying. Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff responded to the price action on X, writing, "If short sellers push $MSTR's price low enough, they can put Saylor in a position where his best option would be to sell Bitcoin to buy back stock." He added that such a move "would reduce the discount" on MSTR shares but warned "Bitcoin will crash" if the company is compelled to sell. Former Bridgewater associate Travis Kling weighed in separately on X, writing, "It makes intuitive sense to me that there would be a group of sophisticated, deep-pocketed BTC bulls that are currently trying to figure out how to collapse the MSTR cap structure by any means necessary, so as to force a puke of the BTC currently held."