Strategy Cash Reserve Hits $3 Billion as It Skips Bitcoin for a Third Week

Strategy says it raised $466.7 million last week by selling common stock and funneled all of it into cash, lifting its US dollar reserve to $3 billion and passing on a Bitcoin purchase for the third consecutive week.

The company sold about 4.8 million MSTR shares between July 6 and July 12 and bought no Bitcoin, leaving its holdings at 843,775 Bitcoin acquired for $63.69 billion, an average of $75,476 a coin, according to a Monday filing.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The cash reserve exists to cover dividends on Strategy’s preferred stock and interest on its debt. The move added about 18% to the cash cushion, enough for more than 20 months of the firm’s $1.76 billion in annual dividend and interest obligations.

The week captures how sharply Strategy has swung from offense to defense. For years the model was simple: raise capital, buy Bitcoin, repeat. But with the company’s capital structure now more complicated, it weeks ago adopted a capital framework that authorizes selling Bitcoin at scale. The firm followed that by disclosing its largest-ever Bitcoin sale, about $216 million, in late June.

MSTR at around $92 on Monday’s close is down about 48% over the past month, though it has steadied since hitting an over-two-year low of $81.81 in late June. Stretch (STRC), the preferred share that has funded much of Strategy’s Bitcoin buying in recent months and now yields 12%, has traded below its $100 par value since mid-May. With Bitcoin down near $62,600, Strategy’s stockpile sits roughly $11 billion below what it paid.

Related Listen: Strategy Sold More Bitcoin. Is This a Betrayal of the Bitcoin Ethos?