According to a regulatory filing, 32 bitcoin changed hands between May 26 and May 31 for roughly $2.5 million — a transaction that marked the first time Strategy had offloaded any of its holdings since late 2022. The company said it expected to use the proceeds to fund distributions on its preferred stock.
Coins were offloaded at an average price of $77,135 apiece. News of the sale sent Strategy shares down more than 6% in premarket trading, and bitcoin slid 2%, touching its weakest price since April 13.
December 2022 — a turbulent stretch defined by aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes, the implosion of the FTX exchange, and a wave of failures cascading through leveraged crypto lenders and hedge funds — was the previous occasion on which Strategy parted with any bitcoin, according to CNBC.
The transaction is a signal of how much Strategy's operating philosophy has evolved, according to CNBC. Founder Michael Saylor long championed a doctrine of never parting with the company's coins, but that stance has given way to a more dynamic approach under which bitcoin may be sold when doing so boosts per-share holdings, supports dividend payments, or otherwise bolsters the balance sheet.
"We want to be net aggregators of bitcoin — increasing our total bitcoin, but more importantly, increasing our bitcoin per share because we think that is what is going to be most accretive long term for MSTR," Strategy CEO Phong Le said on the company's earnings call in early May, according to CNBC.
STRC sits at the center of this revised approach, according to CNBC. The instrument, which Strategy issues as a yield-bearing security, gives investors an income stream tied to the firm's enormous bitcoin reserves. By channeling appetite for that kind of product, Strategy aims to accumulate bitcoin at a pace it could not achieve through straightforward purchasing alone.
Alongside the bitcoin disposal, Strategy raised an additional $128.3 million during the same window by issuing 801,994 shares of common stock, the company said. At current prices, bitcoin sits roughly 42% beneath the record high it set above $126,000, according to CNBC.