Strategy Buys Back Stock, Skips Bitcoin Purchase
Bitcoin Magazine Strategy Buys Back Stock, Skips Bitcoin Purchase Bitcoin treasury Strategy is holding off buying bitcoin again. This post Strategy Buys Back Stock, Skips Bitcoin Purchase first ap...
Bitcoin treasury Strategy held off buying bitcoin again last week. The Nasdaq-listed company said it instead bought $139 million of its preferred stock STRC.
A Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday showed that the company repurchased 1.42 million STRC preferred shares for around $139.3 million between September 8 and September 13.
The company still owns 845,050 bitcoins worth $66.2 billion at today’s prices, and has two cash balances: USD Reserve and USD Cash, holding $5.1 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively.
Strategy has repurchased $139M of $STRC. As of 9/13/26, we hold 845,050 $BTC and $6.4B of USD Assets. $MSTRhttps://t.co/awLZ666Nuq
Strategy, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, this year switched from predictably buying the biggest cryptocurrency this week to buying back its stock and building a cash reserve.
On some occasions, the company even sold small bits of its BTC stash — despite founder and chairman Michael Saylor famously preaching to “never sell your bitcoin.”
After a 10-week hiatus, the company started buying bitcoin again in the final week of August, scooping up nearly $370 million in the leading cryptocurrency.
Its Nasdaq-listed shares (MSTR) were 3% trading higher on Monday. The stock has lost over 75% of its value since notching a record in November 2024 — one month before bitcoin passed the once mythical and long-awaited $100,000 mark.
Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — is an enterprise software company that pivoted to buying and holding bitcoin in 2020.
It first bought the cryptocurrency to protect its shareholders from inflation but has since aggressively bought the asset and pivoted to being a bitcoin treasury.
Strategy has defended its recent bitcoin sales, with CEO Phong Le saying that the company now has a “bullet-proof balance sheet.”
In the company’s quarterly earnings in July, Strategy posted a $8.22 billion loss. But Le reassured investors that the firm’s current paper loss was nothing to worry about.
“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 in a subsequent interview.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
Strategy's shift from aggressive bitcoin accumulation to stock buybacks and cash hoarding signals a strategic pivot away from its stated 'never sell' thesis. The company has now repurchased $139M in preferred shares while maintaining a $6.4B USD cash position—a departure from the leverage-heavy bitcoin-accumulation playbook that defined its 2021-2024 positioning. This move suggests management is hedging balance-sheet risk, particularly given the 75% decline in MSTR stock price from November 2024 highs and the $8.22B unrealized loss posted in Q2 2026.
The pattern is revealing: after a 10-week bitcoin pause, Strategy resumed buying in late August ($370M), then immediately pivoted back to equity buybacks. This indicates the company is managing cash flow optionality rather than pursuing a conviction-based accumulation strategy. CEO Phong Le's JP Morgan comparison ('irrelevant whether we sell 1,000 of 840,000') contradicts founder Michael Saylor's original no-sell positioning, signaling organizational friction over bitcoin's role—treasury asset or speculative leverage bet. For the broader sector, this undercuts the 'corporate treasury adoption' narrative and suggests large holders will opportunistically rebalance rather than accumulate monotonically.
Strategy's largest-holder status (845k BTC) gives this rebalancing outsized market signaling value. If the sector's most committed corporate holder is building cash reserves and skipping purchases, it may indicate declining confidence in near-term BTC appreciation or rising concerns about margin requirements and counterparty risk in a volatile macro environment.