[Update 1:57 P.M. UTC, June 1 — Updates third paragraph with share price decline in Monday morning trading.]
Last week, Strategy sold 32 BTC, marking the first recorded Bitcoin sale since 2022 tax-loss trading as the company moved to fund preferred stock distributions.
Strategy sold 32 Bitcoins (BTC) for $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per BTC, reducing its holdings from 843,738 BTC to 843,706 BTC, According to until Monday’s 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company’s shares, traded on MSTR Nasdaq, fell more than 6% after the market opened on Monday and were last trading at around $148.70 apiece.
Proceeds from the Bitcoin sale are expected to be used to fund the distribution of preferred stock, the company said.
Source: SEC
The sale came as Strategy faced increased scrutiny of its preferred equity financing model as investors questioned whether dividend obligations could ultimately pressure the company to sell some of its bitcoin.
The sale is Strategy’s first reported Bitcoin sale since its 2022 tax loss transactionwhen the company sold 704 BTC and two days later bought back 810 BTC.
Bitcoin (BTC) price chart for the last 24 hours. Source: CoinGecko
After the disclosure, Bitcoin fell below $72,000 and at the time of writing it was trading at $71,939, According to this CoinGecko.
Strategy sells $128 million worth of Common A stock
In addition to selling Bitcoin in the last week of May, Strategy also sold 801,994 Class A shares (MSTR), generating revenue of $128.3 million.
There were no preferred share increases during the week, consistent with STRC Live reports that estimated that Strategy would not announce any purchases last week.
Source: Polimarket
The sales may have surprised some investors after Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor hinted at possible recent activity over the weekend.
“Working Better” Saylor posted on X behind schedule Sunday morning an accompanying bubble chart showing Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases over the past nearly six years.
As of this writing, Saylor has not posted on X about the $2.5 million Bitcoin sale, prompting there was criticism that he went “radio silent” even though he usually announced recent purchases immediately.
Some industry observers had expected a potential sale of crypto intelligence platform Arkham reporting this strategy moved BTC to Coinbase Prime last Friday.
Related: Strategy buys $1.5 billion of debt at a discount and reduces outstanding bonds to $6.7 billion
Chief Strategy Officer Phong Le confirmed last week that the company may sell Bitcoin in the future.
“We will probably sell Bitcoin at some point, but we will be increasing the net value of our Bitcoin and, more importantly, increasing our Bitcoin per share,” the CEO said.
Corporate demand for bitcoin is degenerating as sales activity emerges
The sale of the strategy comes after some Bitcoin treasury companies slowed purchases or began to reduce holdings after months of accumulation.
ProCap Financial is a Nasdaq-listed company announced On Monday, he sold about 52 Bitcoins to finance the repurchase of 2 million shares of common stock at about a 50% discount to net asset value. The company said the deal increased Bitcoin exposure on a per-share basis for remaining shareholders.
Source: Antoni Pompliano
Broader Bitcoin treasury activity has also shown signs of cooling, with companies acquiring a total of 144 Bitcoin last week, including purchases by DDC Enterprise, A smarter online business AND Capital B– according to corporate disclosures. For comparison, last week corporate holders bought 603 Bitcoins, a piercing decline from week to week.
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