What Is Strategy (MSTR)? The Bitcoin Treasury Company

Yahoo News · Jun 30, 2026

What Is Strategy (MSTR)? The Bitcoin Treasury Company

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What Is Strategy (MSTR)? The Bitcoin Treasury Company

This strategy has ultimately been adopted by other publicly traded companies like MARA, Metaplanet and Riot Platforms. In December 2024, Saylor likened this strategy to the development of Manhattan real estate, telling CNBC that, "Every time Manhattan real estate goes up in value, they issue more debt to develop more real estate."

The firm signaled in October 2024 that it has no plans on slowing down in the future. At that time, Strategy announced plans to raise up to $42 billion in order to add more of the leading cryptocurrency asset to its balance sheet.

Seeking more though, the firm passed a vote in January 2025 to implement a 30x increase of its Class A common shares, allowing it to add even more Bitcoin than initially planned.

Days later, the company announced the offering of a new stock, Strike (STRK)–as a new way for it to raise money to buy Bitcoin. Selling shares for $80 a piece, the firm aimed to grab another $584 million for Bitcoin purchases to build out its treasury. The firm announced another $2 billion convertible senior notes sale in February 2025.

MicroStrategy Is Raising $584 Million to Stack Even More Bitcoin

Throughout the year, the firm would launch additional preferred stock offerings to help fund its Bitcoin purchases, granting different types of investors access to different risk-adjusted products like Stretch (STRC), Stride (STRD), Strife (STRF), and Stream (STRE) in addition to Strike.

The strategy of raising debt to buy Bitcoin has been adopted by other publicly traded companies like MARA and Riot Platforms. In December, Saylor likened this strategy to the development of Manhattan real estate, telling CNBC that, "Every time Manhattan real estate goes up in value, they issue more debt to develop more real estate."

As Strategy has become ever more closely intertwined with Bitcoin, the company now refers to itself as the "World's First and Largest Bitcoin Treasury Company" via its investor relations page.

Michael Saylor, Bitcoin convert

Though Michael Saylor is now one of the loudest voices advocating for Bitcoin, he wasn't always a Bitcoin bull.

Just seven years before his company adopted the crypto as its main reserve asset, Saylor tweeted that "#Bitcoin days are numbered. It seems like just a matter of time before it suffers the same fate as online gambling."

Since then, Saylor has done a complete 180°, claiming Bitcoin is the best long-term asset to hold while committing to "buying the top forever," referring to consistently purchasing the asset at its peak prices—which Strategy continues to do.

In Saylor's view, that means he might be buying Bitcoin at $13 million, the price target he's established for the asset over the next 21 years as he expects it to take up a larger percentage of total global capital.

The case against Strategy's Bitcoin reserve

Strategy's persistent Bitcoin acquisitions via the sale of debt has faced scrutiny by analysts and media in the space. In November 2024, Robinhood-backed Sherwood Media outlined the "math problem," with MSTR being worth 3x the amount of BTC that it holds and the potential of forced liquidations in a drawdown.

This premium, known as the firm's mNAV or its multiple to its net asset value, has historically traded at a strong premium for Strategy. However, as Bitcoin fell in 2026, Strategy's mNAV—which had reached as high as 3.89x in November 2024—dropped below 1, meaning the company's market cap is now valued below the value of its Bitcoin holdings.

The falling mNAV corresponded with around a 70% drop in the MSTR share price over the six-month period from August 2025 to February 2026, with the company reporting a loss of $12.4 billion in Q4 2025.

Skeptics have often noted that if the MSTR share price falls enough, Strategy could be forced to sell Bitcoin to repay billions in convertible notes, "effectively reversing its 'perpetual motion machine'...which would further decrease Bitcoin's price," according to Sherwood Media.

But as shares fell, alongside BTC in February 2026, Saylor called concerns about the firm's ability to pay its debts and dividends "unfounded," noting that his firm would just "refinance the debt" should the price of BTC fall far enough.

To help avoid situations where the firm may be forced into selling BTC, it established a cash reserve in December 2025, kickstarting it with $1.44 billion in funds. It later added to that pile, ultimately securing more than 2.5 years worth of debt and dividends as of February 2026, according to Saylor—who claims that the company can cover its $6 billion debt if BTC falls as low as $8,000. In May 2026, the firm used 61% of its cash buffer to repurchase $1.5 billion in convertible notes.

Bitcoin Giant Strategy Slashes Cash Reserves by 61% to Repurchase $1.5 Billion in Debt

Similar to the concerns raised about the drop in MSTR, a more than 4.5% drop from the $100 par value of STRC in June 2026 led others to show skepticism in the firm's ability to maneuver cleanly through a prolonged period of trading below par. Analysts pointed to the exposure of a "structural crack" in Strategy's Bitcoin flywheel, as the longer STRC trades below $100, the greater the likelihood of a "trap" developing that would force the firm to decide between offering new shares or selling Bitcoin to keep paying its dividend.

From "never sell your Bitcoin" to "never be a net seller"

In May 2026 Strategy revised its long-held "never sell your Bitcoin" philosophy, with executives signaling that offloading some of its Bitcoin holdings wasn't off the table.

During the company's Q1 2026 earnings call, CEO Phong Le said the firm would consider selling Bitcoin if doing so improved its "Bitcoin-per-share" position or helped manage debt and dividend obligations.

"We will sell Bitcoin when it's advantageous to the company," Le said. "We're not going to sit back and just say, 'We'll never sell the Bitcoin.'"

Saylor went further, suggesting that the firm might sell Bitcoin to "inoculate the market—just to send the message that we did it." He later clarified that Strategy's goal is to "never be a net seller" of Bitcoin, arguing that the company still expects to acquire far more BTC than it might eventually sell to fund dividends or operations. Days after the comments, Strategy resumed buying Bitcoin.

However, it didn't make it much further before eventually yielding to Saylor's telegraphed remarks, ultimately selling 32 BTC or about $2.5 million worth in the last week of May. The move coincided with an extended BTC drawdown that saw it fall as low as $60,211 in early June, more than 52% off its all-time high of $126,080.

Speaking of the decline that transpired around the time of the firm's sale, Saylor noted that Bitcoin's weakness was significantly impacted by the "historic scale" of the artificial intelligence trade, pointing to more than $4.3 billion in outflows from Bitcoin ETFs in a span of less than a month.

Michael Saylor's Bitcoin Treasury Firm Strategy Sells 32 BTC for $2.5M

Strategy isn't the only Bitcoin treasury firm to have sold Bitcoin. In March 2026, Bitcoin mining firm MARA Holdings sold 28% of its Bitcoin holdings, around 15,000 BTC, raising around $1.1 billion to repurchase part of its convertible debt. The firm billed it as a way to improve its overall financial footing and finance its pivot from Bitcoin mining into an "energy and digital infrastructure company."

A month later, Riot Platforms followed suit, announcing the sale of over $250 million in BTC in the first quarter of the year as part of a "strategic evolution" into data center development.

Strategy's shifting playbook

In June 2026, Strategy unveiled a "Digital Credit Capital Framework," making the shift in its playbook towards "active capital management" official. Under the new framework approved by its board, the firm announced a "BTC Monetization Program" that would enable it to sell up to $1.25 billion in BTC to bolster its cash reserves, make payouts on products such as Stretch (STRC), or repurchase securities including common stock.

In a statement, the firm's CFO Andrew Kang said that the program "gives Strategy the flexibility to use a portion of its BTC Reserve to strengthen Digital Credit, fund or replenish the USD Reserve, fund dividend payments and interest expense, and fund accretive repurchases when BTC monetization is more advantageous than issuing common equity."

The firm also indicated that it would maintain enough cash to cover dividends for at least a full year, and committed to not issuing more common shares to purchase Bitcoin unless the company were valued at a premium to its holdings.

The future of Strategy

Despite its May sale, its second ever recorded, Strategy is expected to continue its pattern of Bitcoin buys—though its June 29 announcement of a "Digital Credit Capital Framework" was accompanied by a pause in its purchases.

As of June 2026, it holds 843,363 Bitcoin, worth around $50.67 billion—making it the largest Bitcoin treasury among publicly traded companies. According to data from SaylorTracker, Strategy is holding significant paper losses of more than $13 billion based on its average purchase price of $75,653 per Bitcoin.

Saylor's ambitions for Strategy are even grander than adding major Bitcoin reserves to the company's balance sheet. In October 2024, he outlined his vision for Strategy to evolve into a "Bitcoin bank" with a trillion-dollar valuation, creating capital market instruments tied to Bitcoin that can be offered to investors.

In addition to adding to its own holdings, Saylor has pitched Strategy's Bitcoin playbook to other major publicly traded companies. In December 2024, he told the Microsoft board they could stand to create $5 trillion in value by adopting Bitcoin. They voted against adding it to their balance sheet.

This article has been published in Decrypt via Yahoo News