Saylor's "Never Sell" Era Hits a Speed Bump: Strategy Offloads Another 1,638 BTC 🪨

Strategy, chaired by Michael Saylor, sold 1,638 Bitcoin ($BTC) at an average price of $63,957 between July 27 and August 2, generating $104.7 million in proceeds according to a Monday 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The sale cut the company's holdings to 842,138 BTC, acquired at an aggregate cost of $63.51 billion and an average price of $75,419 per coin. Of the Bitcoin sale proceeds, $52.4 million funded dividend payments on Strategy's STRC preferred stock and $52.3 million went toward STRC share repurchases, with Strategy completing $81.2 million in STRC buybacks covering 912,143 shares. The $81.2 million repurchase marked the second under a $1 billion program announced June 29, leaving $893.8 million of authorization outstanding.

In addition to the Bitcoin sales, Strategy sold 3,011,361 MSTR common shares for $290.6 million net during the same week. Strategy applied $250 million of those proceeds to lift its USD Reserve to $4 billion, added $28.9 million toward STRC repurchases and placed $11.7 million into the company's cash balance. The combined moves extended what Strategy calls its "USD duration" by 57 days to 2.3 years, tightened STRC's "BTC Credit" spread by five basis points and funded a $4 billion reserve against $1.76 billion in annual dividend obligations. Strategy also disclosed it would hold the STRC annual dividend rate at 12%, declaring semi-monthly payments of $0.50 per share, and said it does not intend to recommend a reduction until STRC trades consistently near its $100 stated value. STRC traded at $89.4, or 10.6% below par, in Monday's pre-market session, with Yahoo Finance data showing MSTR down 0.9% in pre-market trading.

The sale is Strategy's largest since it disposed of 3,588 BTC for about $216 million on July 6, and follows a 32 BTC sale in early June that marked the company's first reported Bitcoin sale since a December 2022 tax-loss transaction involving 704 BTC. Since a June 29 capital framework permitting up to $1.25 billion of disposals, Strategy has used $321 million of that capacity, discounting the earlier 32 BTC sale. The company has not added Bitcoin since June 22, when it bought 520 BTC, and its holdings now sit 5,225 BTC below the 847,363 peak reached in June, a reduction of 0.6%.

Saylor addressed the activity in a Monday X post, distinguishing his personal Bitcoin holdings from Strategy's capital management. "When I say 'Never Sell Your Bitcoin,' I speak as one saver to another. I have never sold mine. Not one satoshi. Strategy is a public company, not my wallet. Since 2020, it has disclosed it may buy or sell $BTC to manage capital. Our shared conviction in Bitcoin remains unchanged." The framing followed earlier commentary from CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, who wrote on June 24 that Strategy "should pause Bitcoin purchases, rebuild cash reserves, and adopt a systematic framework for purchase timing" after dividend coverage fell to 14 months from seven years.

Bitcoin traded around $62,600 on Monday, down roughly 1% on the day per CoinGecko data. On Myriad, a prediction market operated by Dastan, users assigned just a 6% chance to Strategy holding over 1 million BTC by 2027, down from 12% a week earlier.