Strategy's STRC inches closer to $100 as Saylor continues to sell BTC for USD

Dragging its Stretch (STRC) preferred shares back to par value at $100 remained the priority for chief executive Michael Salor and Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) as the firm reported that it allocated 100% of the $108.6 million it raised from selling 1,690 Bitcoins last week to buying back STRC. 

Strategy raised another $653.1 million by selling 6,585,682 MSTR shares through its at-the-market program. The firm split the raise between its USD reserve and cash accounts at a $650 million to $3.1 million ratio. The USD reserve is now up to $4.65 billion from $4 billion in one week.

Even with the sale confirmed in the Form 8-K filed with the SEC on Monday, Strategy lead as the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin remains safe, with the firm’s current 840,447 BTC stash lightyears ahead of Twenty One Capital’s 43,514 in second place.

Every dollar of the Bitcoin sale went back into STRC

As Cryptopolitan reported at the time, Strategy laid out the framework for what is its third STRC buyback when it released its $1 billion Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program as part of its Digital Credit Capital Framework on June 29.

Strategy offloaded the 1,690 Bitcoin batch for an average of $64,262 each between August 3 and August 9. The $108.6 million it received for the sales went to buying back 1,152,020 shares of STRC, its variable-rate Series A perpetual “Stretch” preferred stock. 

Under the repurchase program, Strategy still has discretion to apply another $785.2 million to claim STRC off the market.

STRC is closing in on its $100 target

Strategy’s multi-week departure from its BTC accumulation streak to repurchase its STRC preferred stock is part of a broader push to bring STRC back to its target $100 level. As of this report, STRC traded at $95.55 pre-market, according to Google Finance.

The stock is now closer to where management wants it compared to its lows in July. 

Chief Executive Phong Le said the goal is for STRC “to trade over time at $99 to $100” during the company’s second-quarter call. 

Saylor said Monday that the latest round tightened what the company calls STRC’s “BTC Credit” by 10 basis points, or a tenth of a percentage point.

Saylor said the raise pushed the company’s “USD Duration,” a measure of how long the cash cushion can fund preferred dividends and interest, up by 143 days to 2.7 years. Strategy has said the reserve is dedicated to those obligations. It still has $1 billion available under a separate MSTR common-stock repurchase program.

The firm that swore it would never sell keeps selling

The sale continues a shift that began at the end of May, when Strategy disposed of 32 Bitcoin for about $2.5 million, its first sale since December 2022. A capital framework unveiled in June authorized up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin disposals, and the company has now used roughly $429 million of that room. 

Strategy has not bought Bitcoin since June.

Saylor has pushed back on the idea that the company has turned into a seller. In a July 31 post cited by Cryptopolitan, he wrote that Strategy has “never had a ‘never sell’ policy” and expects “to remain a net buyer of Bitcoin over time.” 

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