Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin reported Monday that it bought $49.9 million worth of Bitcoin last week, bringing its total holdings to 641,692 coins worth more than $68 billion at current prices.
It’s the latest in a series of relatively small buyouts by the company, which has found its capital-raising efforts stymied in part thanks to a steep decline in the price of MSTR’s common stock.
This latest is the purchase in the spotlight, though, as the director and team for the first time tapped the at-the-market program for the “StrC” Stretch “series of preferred stock, raising $ 26.2 million. The strategy recently increased the annual dividend rate of STRC to 10.5%, paid monthly.
Most of the remaining funds were raised via ATM for STRF “beating” the company’s preferred shares.
Green shoots?
Alongside Bitcoin’s price decline, the strategy’s common stock has suffered a double-whammy recently as investors have all but written off what was once a huge premium to the value of the company’s Bitcoin holdings.
A prominent voice months ago that this premium was futile was short-term giant Jim Chanos, who publicly stated that he was selling MSTR against a Long in BTC. Chanos At the end of the weekhowever, he said he was closing wildly successful trades.
Contrarians will also enjoy a Weekend article in the WSJ where news of what has now been a month-long slump in the prices of Treasury digital asset companies has finally reached that paper’s editorial team.
“The whole concept makes no sense to me,” said one businessman interviewed for the story. “You’re only paying $2 for a dollar bill … eventually those premiums will compress.” Newsflash: They already have.
MSTR shares were 3.2% higher premarket alongside a weekend rally in the price of Bitcoin to return above $106,000.
