Saylor's Stack Takes a Trim: 3,588 $BTC Sold to Pay the Digital Credit Bill 🧾

Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, sold 3,588 $BTC for approximately $216 million over the past week to fund dividends on its preferred shares and maintain its U.S. dollar reserve, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Michael Saylor-led company disclosed that it sold 1,363 $BTC at an average price of $59,256 between Monday and Tuesday last week, followed by 2,225 $BTC at an average price of $60,773 between Wednesday and Sunday. Strategy's USD reserve stood unchanged at $2.55 billion as of July 5, and the firm still holds 843,775 $BTC, carried at a cost basis of $63.7 billion, or about $75,476 per coin. With Bitcoin trading near $60,000, the company recorded an $8.32 billion unrealized loss on its digital assets for the second quarter.

The sales were conducted under a BTC Monetization Program unveiled on June 29, which permits Strategy to raise up to $1.25 billion by selling Bitcoin and remained fully available as of July 5. The program was introduced alongside a capital management framework that authorized $2 billion in stock buybacks, raised the annual dividend on Strategy's Stretch (STRC) perpetual preferred stock to 12%, and signaled potential Bitcoin sales to cover dividend payments. Strategy has said it could fund 26 months of dividend costs by tapping both its cash reserves and its Bitcoin holdings. On Sunday, Executive Chairman and co-founder Michael Saylor referred to Bitcoin as "Digital Energy" while sharing a chart of the company's latest purchases, and predicted on X the following morning that changes to Bitcoin's codebase will be less impactful on its evolution than the deepening of capital markets and the expansion of digital credit.

Strategy's perpetual preferred stock, STRC, traded at $88.70 during Monday's pre-market session, 11.3% below its $100 intended par value, according to Yahoo Finance data. Bernstein said before the disclosure that Strategy was unlikely to face forced Bitcoin sales, citing 17 months of cash to cover dividend obligations and interest payments and noting that the company's debt liabilities were a "mere" 13% of its Bitcoin collateral value. The firm's next principal payment of about $1 billion is due in the third quarter of 2028, Bernstein added. Strategy previously disclosed the sale of 32 $BTC in early June, its first reported Bitcoin sale since a 2022 tax-loss transaction, and Bernstein maintained its $150,000 year-end Bitcoin price target, saying it remained "optimistic on Bitcoin long-term."