Saylor's "Never Sell" Streak Hits Pause Again as Strategy Sheds 1,638 BTC 🪙

Strategy (MSTR) sold 1,638 Bitcoin (BTC) for $104.73 million at an average price of $63,957 between July 27 and August 2, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The company held 843,775 BTC at the start of that stretch and, following Monday's disclosure, now holds 842,138 BTC acquired for an aggregate $63.51 billion at an average $75,419 per coin. Strategy has not added Bitcoin since June 22, when it bought 520 BTC. Bitcoin was last seen trading near $62,600, down about 1% on the day, per CoinGecko data.

Of the Bitcoin sale proceeds, $52.4 million funded dividend payments on Strategy's STRC preferred stock and $52.3 million went toward repurchasing STRC shares. The week's total STRC buyback came to $81.2 million, covering 912,143 shares under a $1 billion repurchase program announced June 29 and first used last week with a $25 million purchase, leaving $893.8 million of authorization outstanding. Strategy has used $321 million of the $1.25 billion in Bitcoin-disposal capacity set out in its June capital framework, discounting a 32 BTC sale in late May that preceded the framework.

Strategy also sold 3,011,361 MSTR common shares for $290.6 million net during the week. About $250 million of that went to lift the company's "USD Reserve" to $4 billion, with $28.9 million applied to the STRC buyback and $11.7 million added to its cash balance. Founder and chairman Michael Saylor said in a Monday X post that the moves extended what he calls "USD duration" by 57 days, to 2.3 years, and tightened STRC's "BTC credit spread" by five basis points, holding the preferred's annual dividend rate at 12% with semi-monthly payments of $0.50 a share.

The STRC buyback came as STRC traded at $89.4, or 10.6% below its $100 intended par value, in Monday's pre-market session, per Yahoo Finance data. MSTR slipped 1.9% in pre-market trading. Strategy said it does not intend to recommend a dividend cut on STRC until the shares trade consistently near their $100 stated value. Strategy's prior large BTC dispositions include a 3,588 BTC sale for about $216 million on July 6 and a 32 BTC sale in early June for $2.5 million at an average $77,135, its first reported Bitcoin sale since a 2022 tax-loss transaction involving 704 BTC.