Strategy Bought 1,665 Bitcoin for $142.7M, Then Spent More Than That on STRC
Strategy's back-to-back Bitcoin buys mark its first consecutive weekly purchases since June, lifting holdings to a record 847,666 BTC. But last week it spent $151.7 million repurchasing its own preferred stock, more than it put into Bitcoin. That tells you where the real pressure is.
Strategy is buying Bitcoin again. Twice in a row, which is a first since June. The Michael Saylor-led firm picked up 1,665 BTC for $142.7 million during the week ended Sept. 27, at an average of $85,681 a coin. That's roughly 75% larger than the 950 BTC it bought the week before for $75.7 million, and it ends a three-month stretch where the company couldn't string two purchases together.
Holdings now sit at a record 847,666 BTC, acquired for about $63.9 billion at an average price of $75,437. At current prices that's worth around $70.7 billion, an unrealized gain of $6.75 billion, or 10.6%. The two buys flipped a quarter that had been running negative on accumulation after some mid-year sales. Strategy is now up a net 1,666 BTC for Q3 with three trading days left, extending its streak of net-positive quarters to 24.
But the headline number isn't the whole story. Last week, Strategy also repurchased 1.53 million shares of its STRC preferred stock for $151.7 million. That's more than it spent on Bitcoin. It funded the buyback with $103.5 million from MSTR share sales and $48.1 million of its own cash, then pulled another $22.1 million from its USD Reserve to cover preferred dividends.
The yield metrics are less flattering. Bitcoin yield sits at negative 3.7% year to date, and quarterly BTC Gain is -100,275, worth about -$8.37 billion at the prices the company uses in its own reporting. Proponents tend to skip past that line. Granted, STRC has climbed back to roughly $99, within about 1% of its $100 stated value, after falling as low as $71 during June's selloff. Strategy has now burned through more than $1 billion of a $2 billion buyback program propping the instrument up.
So the company sold equity, bought Bitcoin, and spent more buying back its own preferred shares. That's a capital markets operation as much as a treasury strategy, and I'm not entirely convinced the two are as neatly aligned as the buy-the-dip narrative suggests. Watch the Oct. 28 shareholder vote on daily dividends across STRC and its three sibling preferreds. If STRC still needs Strategy absorbing nearly a fifth of its trading volume to hold par, the Bitcoin buying streak won't be the number that matters most.