Strategy's CEO Calls Selling $BTC at $60K and Buying Back at $80K "The Right Trade" 🤝

Strategy CEO Phong Le has no regrets about selling Bitcoin near $60,000 in June and August only to repurchase it at a higher average price weeks later, saying the move reflected changes in the company's balance sheet and financing costs rather than a directional bet on Bitcoin's price. "It was the right trade at the time to sell Bitcoin to fund our STRC dividends," Le said in an interview with Bloomberg Crypto on Wednesday. "It's the right trade at this point in time to sell MSTR at a premium to buy Bitcoin."

According to the company's Bitcoin ledger, Strategy sold 6,916 BTC in four tranches from late June through mid-August at a weighted-average price of about $62,200, then bought 4,603 BTC last week at an average price of $80,318. An Aug. 31 regulatory filing shows the company paid $369.7 million for the 4,603 BTC acquired in the week ending Aug. 30, financed by selling MSTR shares. The purchase brought Strategy's holdings to 845,050 BTC, valued at roughly $65.4 billion.

Le said Strategy's decisions are driven by balance-sheet mechanics rather than Bitcoin's market price. "We don't really make decisions on Bitcoin specific to Bitcoin price," he said. "What did we do over the last two months while we were not buying Bitcoin? We shored up our balance sheet." During the two-month pause in purchases, Strategy increased its assets to $72 billion—about $65 billion in Bitcoin and approximately $7 billion in dollar reserves—while reducing net debt from roughly $7 billion to zero, according to Le. He said the stronger balance sheet made it cheaper to issue MSTR shares and use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin.

The pause followed Strategy's accelerated purchases earlier in the year and came after the company abandoned its "never sell" position in May, pledging instead to remain a net Bitcoin buyer. The shift coincided with STRC—Strategy's variable-rate perpetual preferred stock—falling below its $100 stated value in June. Because Strategy adjusts STRC's dividend to keep the shares trading near $100, the decline made issuing more stock less attractive and reduced a key source of funding for Bitcoin purchases. "It's a two-way strategy. There will be times when it makes sense to sell Bitcoin," Le said. "That 7,000 Bitcoin is less than 1% of the total Bitcoin we have."

Le noted that the sale attracted outsized attention despite representing less than 1% of Strategy's Bitcoin holdings, which have grown 25% to 30% this year. "A one-way accumulator isn't really a full operating company," he said. "Somebody who is able to buy and sell Bitcoin, buy and sell equity, buy and sell preferreds—that's really a true operating company and a two-way capital management company. That's what we are." The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed the first substantive rewrite of its transfer agent rules since the early 2000s, a separate regulatory process unrelated to Strategy's recent trades.