Bitcoin treasury strategy has once more ceased the accumulation of sats. Just one week after resuming its bitcoin buying following a 10-week hiatus, the Nasdaq-listed company has paused its BTC purchases once more. Instead, the firm continued to engage in stock buybacks, repurchasing $176 million of STRC and expanding the scope of its digital credit securities repurchase program from $1 billion to $2 billion, as detailed in a regulatory filing and announcement from founder and chairman Michael Saylor on Tuesday.
The company continues to possess 845,050 bitcoins, valued at over $66 billion at current market rates, alongside $6.5 billion in dollar reserves. The bitcoins were acquired at an average price of $63.73 billion, as indicated in Tuesday’s filing. Strategy shares were trading more than 3% lower Tuesday morning in New York. The company suspended its bitcoin acquisitions in June, redirecting its efforts toward establishing a cash reserve, repurchasing its shares, and occasionally liquidating portions of its holdings.
Strategy has justified its bitcoin sales, with CEO Phong Le asserting that the company now possesses a “bullet-proof balance sheet” as a result of this decision, and that it was the “right trade at the time” to execute the sales when it did. In the company’s quarterly earnings report released in July, Strategy recorded a loss of $8.22 billion. However, Le provided reassurance to investors, indicating that the firm’s existing paper loss should not be a cause for concern. “We’re the J.P. Morgan of the crypto economy, so whether we sell 1,000 Bitcoin out of 840,000 to me is irrelevant to the conversation,” Le said.
Strategy, previously known as MicroStrategy, is an enterprise software firm that shifted its focus to acquiring and retaining bitcoin in 2020. It initially acquired the cryptocurrency as a hedge against inflation for the benefit of its shareholders. Since then, it has aggressively acquired the asset and shifted its focus to becoming a bitcoin treasury. Investors now have the opportunity to acquire shares for increased exposure to the cryptocurrency market or to receive a yield through its digital credit offerings.
