Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin Treasury Firm Strategy Sells 32 BTC for $2.5M – Decrypt

Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy sold 32 BTC from its holdings last week for roughly $2.5 million, per an SEC filing. The average sale price was $77,135 per Bitcoin, and brings Strategy’s holdings down to 843,706 BTC, worth approximately $61 billion at current prices.

Funds from the sale of BTC will be used to fund distributions on preferred stock, the firm said in the filing.

The sale sees the Bitcoin treasury firm abandoning its long-held “never sell” stance. Last month, Strategy softened its stance on selling Bitcoin, with the firm’s Chair Michael Saylor stating that, “We’ll probably sell some Bitcoin to fund a dividend just to inoculate the market—just to send the message that we did it,” during the firm’s Q1 earnings call.

Strategy’s President and CEO Phong Le added that the firm “will sell Bitcoin when it’s advantageous to the company,” noting that it could offload some of its BTC holdings either to buy U.S. dollars or buy debt “if it’s accretive to Bitcoin per share.”

At the time, market observers suggested that Strategy reversing its position on selling Bitcoin could trigger “short-term panic,” with Altura COO Mathew Pinnock telling Decrypt that, “The immediate impact would be the change in perception and weakening sentiments around the conviction of the asset.”

Strategy’s Bitcoin sale comes a week after the firm used 61% of its dedicated cash buffer, worth some $1.38 billion, to repurchase $1.5 billion in convertible notes.

Strategy’s move had an immediate impact, with Bitcoin’s price dropping to just over $72,000 on the news, down 2.4% on the day according to CoinGecko data.

This isn’t actually the first time that Strategy has sold Bitcoin. In December 2022, the firm sold 704 BTC for around $11.8 million, before repurchasing 810 BTC two days later, as part of a tax loss harvesting event.

This is a developing story and will be updated.