Headline: Strategy CEO says buybacks are on hold — until preferred shares hit $100 (or Bitcoin tumbles to $10K)
Strategy, the largest known corporate holder of Bitcoin, says it won’t resume buying until its preferred shares recover to par — but the firm isn’t panicking unless BTC collapses to the single‑digit thousands.
CEO Phong Le told Bloomberg TV that Strategy’s plan is simple: get its preferred stock, Stretch (ticker STRC), back to its $100 par value, then issue more shares to fund Bitcoin purchases. “When Stretch gets back to par, we’ll issue more. We’ll buy Bitcoin. We may continue to beef up our U.S. dollar reserve,” he said, while admitting he’s “unsure” how long that will take. Issuing preferreds is central to the company’s capital strategy because it’s “very accretive to our Bitcoin per share,” Le said.
What’s changed since June
- Strategy hasn’t bought BTC since late June.
- Instead, it raised $467 million via a common‑stock sale to grow its U.S. dollar reserve to about $3 billion — enough, the company says, to cover two years of dividends.
- Le framed the shift as an evolution “from being a Bitcoin treasury company to a full digital capital platform,” with a bigger emphasis on liquidity and capital flexibility.
Why STRC matters
STRC has traded below its $100 par since mid‑May and was near $89 on Wednesday. That matters because issuing preferreds below par is unattractive: the company would effectively be selling capital at a discount, reducing the accretive effect on Bitcoin per share. Le says boosting the dollar reserve is the primary lever to restore confidence — the reserve build helped lift STRC from around $75 to close to $90 recently.
Market position and recent sales
Le pushed back on any suggestion Strategy is retreating. The firm holds north of 840,000 BTC — roughly 4% of the maximum 21 million supply — and remains the largest identified holder. He noted Bitcoin trades $30–40 billion a day and that Strategy’s recent $216 million in sales “did not move the market.” Those sales began as co‑founder Michael Saylor pared the company’s roughly $54 billion stack last month, prompting debate over the durability of the 2020-era debt-and-equity flywheel that funded many purchases.
Analysts and corporate moves
Standard Chartered analysts have described the trading as “mostly noise.” Two weeks ago Strategy unveiled a new capital framework giving management more room to sell BTC, buy back securities and protect liquidity — a framework Le says is designed to manage through volatility.
Rumors and downside scenarios
Le also dismissed a Bloomberg report that distressed funds were negotiating swaps of STRC, saying the company hasn’t had “any material conversations” about such deals. Asked about a worst‑case, he said the real debt risks emerge only if Bitcoin falls “closer to $8,000 to $10,000.” Until then, he said, Strategy’s balance sheet feels secure. “We’ve been through this in 2022. We’re going through it in 2026, and I’m pretty excited about the next bull market of Bitcoin,” Le added.
The reality on the charts
- Strategy’s common stock (MSTR) is down more than 77% over the past year.
- Bitcoin has slid about 45% in the same period and trades roughly half its October all‑time high, leaving the preferred‑share engine that funds purchases stuck below the level Le needs to restart it.
Market bets
Prediction market Myriad (owned by Decrypt parent Dastan) gives only a 13% chance that Strategy will hold more than 1 million BTC before 2027 — a target that would require buying more than 150,000 BTC with less than a year remaining.
Bottom line: Strategy is pausing purchases but not abandoning its playbook. The firm is prioritizing liquidity, waiting for STRC to recover to par (or for a favorable market turn) before restarting its preferred‑share funded buys — and it says only a catastrophic Bitcoin drop to the $8k–$10k range would force a more dramatic rethink.
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