Bitcoin (BTC) Level Topped Up at Michael Saylor's MSTR
Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin BTC$104,774.25, reported Monday that it purchased $49.9 million worth of bitcoin last week, bringing its total holdings to 641,692 coins valued at more than $68 billion at current prices.
It was the latest in a series of relatively small buys by the company, which has found its capital-raising efforts constrained in part thanks to the steep price decline in MSTR common stock.
This latest is purchase in notable, though, as Sayor and team for the first time tapped its at-the-market program for its STRC "Stretch" series of preferred stock, raising $26.2 million. Strategy recently increased STRC’s annualized dividend rate to 10.5%, paid monthly.
The majority of the remaining funds were raised via the ATM for the company's STRF "Strife" preferred shares.
Green shoots?
Alongside bitcoin's price declines, Strategy common stock has suffered a double-whammy recently as investors have all but removed what was once its large premium to the value of bitcoin held by the company.
A prominent voice months ago that this premium made no sense was short-selling giant Jim Chanos, who publicly said he was selling MSTR against a long in BTC. Chanos over the weekend, however, said he was closing out this wildly successful trade.
Contrarians will also take cheer in a weekend article in the WSJ in which news of what is now a months-long collapse in the prices of digital asset treasury companies has finally reached that paper's editorial team.
"The whole concept makes no sense to me," said one trader interviewed for the story. "You are just paying $2 for a one-dollar bill ... Eventually those premiums will compress." Newsflash: they already have.
MSTR shares are higher by 3.2% premarket alongside a weekend rise in the price of bitcoin to back above $106,000.
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