Strategy’s Michael Saylor hinted that his company might actually sell some of its Bitcoin. It’s not a matter of desperation, it’s a calculated signal to the market.
A message, not a collapse
Strategy may sell some of its holdings to fund the dividend, Saylor said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call Tuesday. This is mainly to prove a point.
“We will probably sell some bitcoin to fund dividends and to shore up the market and send the message that we have done it,” he said.
As Saylor said, the idea is to show investors that the company is stable, Bitcoin is okay, and the world hasn’t collapsed.
This marks a sharp change from his stance as recently as February, when he told CNBC that Strategy would “buy Bitcoin every quarter forever.”
At the time, he also said the company could survive a price drop to $8,000 without having to sell its holdings to cover its debt.
Strategy currently holds 818,334 bitcoins, worth approximately $66.7 billion. A single asset costs a lot of money.
Big loss, bigger context.
The earnings release comes after Strategy posted a net loss of $12.5 billion in the first quarter. Most of the losses were related to the unrealized decline in the value of Bitcoin holdings, which fell 23.5% during the quarter.
The market reacted quickly. Shares of MSTR fell 4.33% in after-hours trading, closing at $178.80.
Nonetheless, Saylor remains focused on the long game. Strategy has been funding its Bitcoin purchases through dividend-paying preferred stocks, including STRC named Stretch.
According to the report, Stretch pays an 11% monthly dividend and has helped raise a significant portion of the 145,834 bitcoins the company acquired this year alone.
Saylor said he wants Stretch to become the world’s largest credit vehicle, arguing that growth in assets under management will drive more liquidity and broader adoption.
Several Bitcoin-focused decentralized finance protocols, including Pendle and Saturn, have already begun tokenizing Stretch’s dividends and making them tradable on public markets.
Neobanks and Bitcoin Credit Drive
Saylor is also eyeing a new frontier: Bitcoin-backed digital yield accounts offered through neobanks. He expects the account to be able to deliver returns of up to 8%, which he claims would outperform most stablecoin offerings.
According to Saylor, about 36 initiatives have emerged in the Bitcoin credit space in the last two to three months alone.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView
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