Key Takeaways:
Strategy has gone five weeks without buying Bitcoin, its longest pause since 2020, as the company prioritizes repairing its $10.5 billion STRC preferred-stock program.
"Strategy is evolving from one-way capital issuance to active capital management," Chief Executive Phong Le said on the company's second-quarter earnings call.
The company reported an $8.22 billion second-quarter loss, reversing a $10.02 billion profit a year earlier, after an $8.32 billion write-down on digital assets as Bitcoin ended June about 40 percent below its year-ago level. Strategy sold $218.4 million of Bitcoin this year to fund preferred-stock dividends and reduced its holdings to 843,775 BTC, purchased for $63.69 billion at an average $75,476 per coin.
The pivot breaks from the flywheel model that made Strategy the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder. Co-founder Michael Saylor has set Sept. 8 as an informal benchmark for returning STRC to its $100 stated value, a recovery that would let the company resume issuing preferred stock to fund its goal of doubling Bitcoin per share by 2033.
Strategy's accumulation engine relied on its stock trading at a premium to net asset value, letting it issue equity and buy more Bitcoin. With MSTR trading at 0.60 times NAV, issuing shares would dilute Bitcoin per share rather than grow it. The company's last purchase was 520 BTC for $35 million during the week of June 15-21, at an average price of $67,068 — above Bitcoin's $62,751 level as of Aug. 1.
STRC, the variable-rate perpetual preferred stock launched last year, has become the binding constraint. Its stated value nearly doubled to $10.5 billion by June 30, and Strategy raised $7.53 billion through the instrument in the first seven months of 2026. Institutional holdings tripled to $3.1 billion, or 29 percent of the outstanding stock, while retail investors hold the remaining $7.4 billion.
The security trades at a discount to its $100 stated value, with an effective yield of 13.6 percent after Strategy raised the dividend to 12 percent on July 1. That discount restricts Strategy's ability to issue new STRC efficiently, since selling below par creates a larger senior claim than the cash raised.
Strategy has rebuilt its dollar reserve to $3.75 billion, covering an estimated 2.1 years of the $1.76 billion in annual dividend and interest payments, after the reserve fell to $871 million in late May. The company authorized $1 billion of preferred-stock buybacks and spent $25 million acquiring 288,930 STRC shares at an average $86.53, leaving $975 million under the program.
Saylor said Strategy has "the means to return STRC to par," citing its $58.5 billion Bitcoin reserve, and has opened the door to selling Bitcoin to fund repurchases. "If it took an extra $4 billion, spend $4 billion," he said on the earnings call. "Just make the thing work."
Polymarket traders give STRC a 15 percent chance of touching $100 by Sept. 30 and a 34 percent chance by Dec. 31, while pricing a 10 percent probability that Strategy holds 1 million Bitcoin by year-end — down from 63 percent before STRC lost its peg. The company bought 174,895 BTC and sold 3,620 BTC in the first seven months of 2026, leaving purchases exceeding disposals by more than 48 times.
The repair effort determines whether Strategy can resume the digital-credit issuance behind its 2033 target. Le said the company plans to sell digital credit equal to 10 percent to 20 percent of its Bitcoin reserve annually, or $5.5 billion to $11 billion at current values, using part of the proceeds to buy Bitcoin without diluting MSTR shareholders. Until STRC returns to par, that engine stays idle.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
