MicroStrategy Ends Two-Week Pause With 950 Bitcoin: Is the Buying Engine Stalling?

Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, added 950 Bitcoin (BTC) in the week to September 20 and repurchased $174 million of its own preferred stock over the same stretch. Total holdings now sit at 846,000 BTC.

The buy ends a two-week gap in accumulation. At the $81,200 bitcoin price Strategy used in Monday’s filing, the 950 coins are worth roughly $77 million.

MicroStrategy Bitcoin Holdings. Source: Strategy

How the MicroStrategy Bitcoin Purchase Compares With August

The company’s previous acquisition landed on August 31, when it ended a 10-week pause with 4,603 BTC bought for $369.7 million at an average of $80,318 a coin. In dollar terms, last week’s purchase is about 79% smaller.

Executive Chairman Michael Saylor teased the buy on Sunday with a post reading “A little more orange.”

Bitcoin has since climbed above the level Strategy used in its own math. The asset traded near $85,020 on Monday, up almost 6% over 24 hours.

Bitcoin Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto

Why the Preferred Buyback Cost More Than the Bitcoin

The $174 million went to Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC), a Nasdaq-listed share class Strategy designed to trade close to $100. That is more than twice what the bitcoin cost.

Strategy started buying STRC back in late July at an average of $86.52 a share. The stock closed at $98.51 on Friday. Chief Executive Phong Le explained the logic when the program began.

“At prices below $100 per share, STRC repurchases represent an attractive allocation of capital because they can reduce future preferred dividend requirements at a discount.”

Those repurchases are funded by common share sales and potential bitcoin sales rather than the company’s dollar pile, which stood at $6.09 billion on Sept. 20. The structure came out of the Digital Credit Capital Framework Strategy set out in June.

BeInCrypto flagged STRC moving back toward par in August as one of the conditions that would let bitcoin buying restart. It did restart, at a fraction of the earlier pace.

MSTR common stock trades at 0.88 times the value of the bitcoin behind it, according to BitcoinTreasuries. Next Monday’s filing will show whether 950 coins was a floor or a new run rate.

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