I do not view Strategy’s sale of 3,588 bitcoin as a change in conviction. I view it as the next step in the financial architecture Michael Saylor has been building around the asset. Many of the company’s recent moves appear designed to make Strategy more legible to ratings agencies and institutional investors, with the long-term objective of receiving their blessing and eventually qualifying for inclusion in the S&P 500. Servicing the preferred stack from a defined pool of cash and bitcoin supports that effort. I expect this trend to continue.
The more interesting signal is what happened to bitcoin itself. Strategy sold $216 million of bitcoin, yet the price rose roughly 2.5% over the week surrounding the disclosure. U.S. spot ETFs also experienced nearly $5 billion of outflows during the second quarter, equivalent to roughly 78,000 bitcoin at today’s price. The market absorbed all of it. That materially weakens the narrative that Strategy’s purchases and sales are responsible for moving bitcoin’s price.
Strategy still owns 843,775 bitcoin, approximately 4.02% of the maximum supply. For comparison, the World Gold Council estimates that the U.S. Treasury, the largest known single holder of gold, owns about 4% of all above-ground stocks. Bitcoin’s ownership is not unusually concentrated by the standards of major global assets. More importantly, the liquidity is clearly deep enough for the largest corporate holder to buy and sell without dominating the market.
Strategy can matter enormously without being the bitcoin market.
All this said, I still strongly recommend just buying real bitcoin and holding it for the long term. Leave the financial engineering to the speculators.