Strategy spent more buying back its own preferred stock than buying bitcoin

Strategy spent $174 million retiring 1.77 million STRC shares and $75.7 million on 950 coins in the week to September 20 ^[2][3]. For every dollar of bitcoin it bought it spent about $2.30 on its own preferred stock. The week before, it bought no bitcoin at all and put $139.3 million into STRC, according to Cryptopolitan ^[15].

STRC has a par value of $100 a share, pays a 12% annual dividend that took effect on July 1, 2026, and Strategy's Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program buys the shares when they trade below par ^[12][16]. At $174 million for 1.77 million shares, the average paid works out to about $98.31, a discount of roughly $1.69 a share, or about $3 million of face value captured ^[21]. That is a small number next to the $8.05 billion unrealised gain Cointelegraph calculated on the bitcoin at $84,925 ^[7]. The dividend saved is the larger prize: 1.77 million shares at $100 par and 12% is about $21 million a year of preferred distributions retired ^[25].

Both programs run off cash, and the cash is visibly moving. USD Cash fell to $1.05 billion from $1.30 billion a week earlier, a drop of nearly 20%. The USD Reserve slipped to $5.04 billion from $5.10 billion after $57.4 million went to preferred dividends and debt interest ^[9][10]. Strategy reported no sales under its at-the-market programs between September 14 and September 20 ^[11]. So the week's $249.7 million of buying was funded from balances.

Here the sources part company on how much room is left. Cointelegraph, citing the filing, puts $875.1 million as still available under the preferred repurchase program ^[28]; Cryptobriefing says the authorisation was doubled to $2 billion around September 8 and that roughly $1.19 billion remains ^[27]. Cryptobriefing records a pace of $150 million to $176 million a week for the weeks ending August 30 and September 7 ^[26]. At that rate, the gap between those two figures is about two months of buying.

Phong Le, Strategy's chief executive, said in July that there would be no resumption of bitcoin purchases until STRC was back to its $100 par value. He described the company as transitioning from a bitcoin treasury company to a "full digital capital platform" ^[17][18]. STRC traded at $98.85 in Monday's pre-market ^[29]. Purchases resumed anyway.

I think the equity is being priced as a bitcoin proxy while the cash is being managed as a credit book, and the two do not have to agree for long. MSTR closed Friday at $153.92, up 16.4% on the week, down 54.2% over twelve months ^[13]; the coins are worth about $71.9 billion against $63.8 billion of cost ^[6][5]. The counter-thesis is simpler and may be right: defending the preferred at par is how Strategy keeps the 12% funding channel open. A channel that stays open buys more bitcoin later than $75.7 million a week does now. What would prove me wrong is an at-the-market issuance week that funds both programs at once without the cash balances falling, because that would mean the dilution machine still works at these prices. Holdings sat at 845,050 BTC from August 31 until this purchase ^[14], and the record stack, 847,363 BTC on June 22 per BitcoinTreasuries, is 1,363 coins away ^[22].