Saylor sold 5,552 bitcoins in one quarter: record profits, but shareholders own less bitcoin!
First, consider the contrast.
Strategy posted operating income of $20.9 billion in the third quarter, its highest ever. In the same financial report, it sold 5,552 bitcoins.
You read that right: Saylor, who spent five years saying “never sell,” sold bitcoin.
Where did the $349 million from those sales go? $240 million went to preferred stock dividends, and $109 million went to buy back its own STRC preferred shares. Since the start of the year, it has sold about $432 million worth of bitcoin, always for the same reasons: paying dividends and supporting the share price.
The latest week made the trend even clearer. An 8-K filing published on November 2 showed that after a week without buying, it bought back 811 bitcoins for $65.5 million. But during that same week, it spent $208 million buying back STRC—more than three times as much as it spent on bitcoin. Of the $164 million raised by issuing new shares, only $65.5 million went toward buying bitcoin; the rest went into its cash account.
It now holds 849,327 bitcoins, acquired at an average price of $75,451 each. That’s more than 4% of the total bitcoin supply, worth about $65 billion at current prices. Its total bitcoin holdings are still growing, but another metric has taken a turn: BTC Yield, which measures bitcoin per share, is negative 3.7% year to date. That means the company’s bitcoin holdings have grown 26% this year, but each share represents less bitcoin than it did at the start of the year. The same thing happened last week: shares were issued faster than bitcoin was bought, thinning the amount of bitcoin per share by another 0.17%.
And Andrew Kang, the CFO who reported these “best results ever,” is leaving on November 5, citing personal reasons.
This isn’t a crisis of faith; it’s a leveraged machine that has reached the stage where it has to pay interest. The old story was: borrow money to buy bitcoin, bitcoin rises, the share price rises, then borrow even more. The story now is: preferred stock dividends come due every month, STRC’s price has to be supported with real money spent on buybacks, and buying bitcoin has dropped to third place.
Saylor is still Saylor. It’s just that the first page of the ledger has changed from “How much bitcoin did we buy this month?” to “How much in dividends do we have to pay this month?” For people buying MSTR, it’s no longer just “bitcoin with leverage.” It’s more like a machine that needs a steady stream of cash to keep running.
$BTC #strategy #MSTR
First, consider the contrast.
Strategy posted operating income of $20.9 billion in the third quarter, its highest ever. In the same financial report, it sold 5,552 bitcoins.
You read that right: Saylor, who spent five years saying “never sell,” sold bitcoin.
Where did the $349 million from those sales go? $240 million went to preferred stock dividends, and $109 million went to buy back its own STRC preferred shares. Since the start of the year, it has sold about $432 million worth of bitcoin, always for the same reasons: paying dividends and supporting the share price.
The latest week made the trend even clearer. An 8-K filing published on November 2 showed that after a week without buying, it bought back 811 bitcoins for $65.5 million. But during that same week, it spent $208 million buying back STRC—more than three times as much as it spent on bitcoin. Of the $164 million raised by issuing new shares, only $65.5 million went toward buying bitcoin; the rest went into its cash account.
It now holds 849,327 bitcoins, acquired at an average price of $75,451 each. That’s more than 4% of the total bitcoin supply, worth about $65 billion at current prices. Its total bitcoin holdings are still growing, but another metric has taken a turn: BTC Yield, which measures bitcoin per share, is negative 3.7% year to date. That means the company’s bitcoin holdings have grown 26% this year, but each share represents less bitcoin than it did at the start of the year. The same thing happened last week: shares were issued faster than bitcoin was bought, thinning the amount of bitcoin per share by another 0.17%.
And Andrew Kang, the CFO who reported these “best results ever,” is leaving on November 5, citing personal reasons.
This isn’t a crisis of faith; it’s a leveraged machine that has reached the stage where it has to pay interest. The old story was: borrow money to buy bitcoin, bitcoin rises, the share price rises, then borrow even more. The story now is: preferred stock dividends come due every month, STRC’s price has to be supported with real money spent on buybacks, and buying bitcoin has dropped to third place.
Saylor is still Saylor. It’s just that the first page of the ledger has changed from “How much bitcoin did we buy this month?” to “How much in dividends do we have to pay this month?” For people buying MSTR, it’s no longer just “bitcoin with leverage.” It’s more like a machine that needs a steady stream of cash to keep running.
$BTC #strategy #MSTR
