Strategy Sells $334M In MSTR Stock As Bitcoin Holdings Stay Frozen

Strategy left its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings unchanged at 840,447 BTC last week while raising $333.7 million through sales of MSTR stock.

Key Points:

Strategy made no Bitcoin purchases or sales in the week through Aug. 16.

MSTR stock sales raised $333.7 million for dividends, a STRC buyback and the company’s dollar reserve.

The pause follows three consecutive weeks of Bitcoin sales under Strategy’s capital framework.

Strategy Bitcoin Holdings

Strategy reported no Bitcoin purchases or disposals for the week through Aug. 16, according to an 8-K filed Monday. Its 840,447 BTC position remained unchanged, with an average purchase price of $75,385.

Instead, the company sold 3,458,866 MSTR shares for $333.7 million net, at an average price of about $96.48 per share. That was below the prior week’s $99.17 average.

The proceeds were divided among three uses, with $52.4 million allocated to STRC preferred dividends, $132.2 million used to repurchase STRC shares and $149.1 million added to the dollar reserve. Strategy bought back 1,388,720 STRC shares, leaving $653 million under its $1 billion preferred repurchase authorization.

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Capital Framework

The shift back to equity funding matters because Strategy had used Bitcoin sales in recent weeks to meet similar capital needs. Its dollar reserve rose to $4.8 billion from $4.65 billion, while a separate $1 billion authorization to repurchase MSTR stock remained unused.

Strategy said the reserve increase extended its USD Duration by 41 days to 2.8 years and tightened STRC’s BTC Credit by 4 basis points to 114 basis points.

The company has also made no Bitcoin purchases since June, leaving the size of its crypto reserve unchanged while Bitcoin traded near $63,500 on Monday.

At that price, the holdings were worth about $53.4 billion, roughly $9.9 billion below the $63.36 billion Strategy paid for them.

The pause follows 6,948 BTC in sales since May that raised about $432.5 million, including 1,690 BTC sold the previous week for $108.6 million. Those disposals were made under a June framework allowing up to $1.25 billion of Bitcoin sales for dividends, interest, buybacks and reserves, with about $820 million of capacity still available.

Murtuza Merchant

Murtuza is a seasoned finance journalist with extensive experience covering cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. He has contributed to Benzinga and Cointelegraph, among other publications, reporting on emerging trends, the regulatory landscape, and more. Find him at @murtuza_merc on Twitter and mmerchant001 on Telegram. Disclosure: Murtuza holds ATOM, AKT, TIA, INJ, and OSMO.