Michael Saylor announces he'll sell off Strategy's Bitcoin after 3rd earnings miss in a row
Michael Saylor has now put Strategy’s Bitcoin pile in the same bucket as every other company asset: useful, valuable, and possible to sell when the company needs cash.
That is the real story from Strategy (MSTR) after its third straight earnings miss, because Saylor himself said the company could sell Bitcoin if that helps the business.
The comment came during Strategy’s Q1 earnings call on May 5. Saylor said he would not rule out a Bitcoin sale if it served Strategy’s interest. He also said the company may use part of its holdings to pay dividends, and that it would tell the market before doing so.
His exact words were: “We will probably sell some bitcoin to pay a dividend just to inoculate the market and send the message that we did it.”
Saylor tells investors Strategy can use Bitcoin sales to handle dividend bills
Strategy (MSTR) is still sitting on one of the largest corporate Bitcoin positions in the world. The company disclosed 818,334 BTC at an average cost of $75,537 per coin. That is a massive bet, but it also means every sharp drop in Bitcoin prices hits the company’s books hard.
The company reported a $12.54 billion net loss for Q4. It also has about $1.5 billion in dividend obligations. That figure includes annual preferred stock dividends and interest tied to debt already on the balance sheet.
Based on its dollar reserves, Strategy has around 18 months of coverage for those payments. That is why Saylor’s comment matters. He did not frame a possible Bitcoin sale as panic selling. He described it as part of the company’s credit-heavy strategy.
He summed up the plan this way: “You buy bitcoin with credit, you let it appreciate, and then you sell bitcoin to pay the dividend.”
The market did not take the comment quietly. Strategy (MSTR) fell more than 4% in after-hours trading. Bitcoin also dropped below $81,000, after trading above that level only hours earlier. For crypto traders, that was the part that hit fast. A company built around holding BTC just told the market that selling is allowed.
Strategy’s 2022 sale and 2026 accounting hit put Saylor’s comments under pressure
The company has already had one real Bitcoin sale in its history. On December 22, 2022, then-MicroStrategy sold 704 BTC for about $11.8 million. That was the first time the company sold any of its coins.
That sale came after a rough year for the market. On the May 3, 2022 earnings call, MicroStrategy CFO Phong Le said the company could face a margin call if Bitcoin dropped near $21,000. If that happened, the company would need to sell coins or add more collateral.
When Bitcoin later fell to about $20,800 in June 2022, MicroStrategy said it had not received a margin call. The company also said it had enough capital to deal with more price swings.
The pressure came back in late November 2025. Forbes reported that Strategy (MSTR) shares were down 60% from the previous year. Its market cap had fallen to $49 billion, while its Bitcoin holdings were worth about $56 billion at the same time. After Strategy CEO Phong Le discussed a possible Bitcoin sale, market watchers tied that talk to Bitcoin sliding below $86,000 in early December 2025.
Today, Phong said:
“Our ability to sell bitcoin either to buy U.S. dollars or sell bitcoin to buy debt if it’s accretive to bitcoin per share is something that we would consider doing going forward. We will sell bitcoin when it’s advantageous to the company. We’re not going to sit back and just say, ‘We’ll never sell the bitcoin.’ We want to be net aggregators of bitcoin – increasing our total bitcoin, but more importantly, increasing our bitcoin per share because we think that is what is going to be most accretive long term for MSTR.”
Strategy recorded a $2.2 billion valuation allowance because in Q1, deferred tax assets linked to unrealized Bitcoin losses were not expected to be realized. It also bought 89,599 BTC during the quarter, but its digital assets still fell by $7.2 billion because Bitcoin dropped 23%. The report also said STRC issuance drove a $2.1 billion increase in Q1.
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