For years, Strategy's whole pitch was that it never sells bitcoin. That story keeps getting harder to tell. Between July 27 and August 3, Michael Saylor's company sold 1,638 BTC at an average price of $63,957, pulling in $104.7 million.
None of that cash went toward buying more coins. Instead, $52.4 million covered dividend payments on Strategy's STRC preferred shares, and another $52.3 million bought back STRC stock. The sale trims Strategy's stash to 842,138 BTC — still roughly 4% of bitcoin's entire 21 million supply — but at an average cost basis of $63.5 billion, the position now sits on close to $10.9 billion in unrealized losses.
STRC is the part worth understanding. It's a preferred stock Strategy issued to raise cash, paying holders a 12% annualized dividend pegged to a $100 par value. Right now it trades around $89.40, nearly 11% underwater, and CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju estimates the company's dividend coverage cushion has shrunk from seven years to just 14 months. His advice: stop buying bitcoin and rebuild cash.
Saylor pushed back on viral claims that Strategy had won fresh approval to sell up to $5 billion in bitcoin, calling it "old news in a new wrapper" and insisting the company remains a net buyer over time. Still, this was Strategy's second-largest bitcoin sale of the year, after offloading 3,588 BTC in early July, and only its third sale since the company started buying in 2020, following a first, symbolic 32-BTC sale back in June.
Markets barely blinked: bitcoin dipped to about $62,400 and MSTR shares fell roughly 1.7% premarket. But the shift matters beyond the ticker. The company that turned "never sell" into a slogan is now running a preferred-stock machine that depends on fresh capital, not just rising bitcoin prices, to keep paying out.
