Key Takeaways
- Strategy sold about 7,000 BTC near $60,000 in 2026, then paid $369.7 million for 4,603 BTC at $80,318.
- Phong Le says net debt fell from about $7 billion to zero, leaving $7 billion in cash and no forced selling.
- With bitcoin’s price near $79,700, Strategy’s 845,050 BTC sit about $3.6 billion above cost basis.
Sell Low, Buy High? Le Says That Is the Wrong Question
This summer, Strategy sold about 7,000 BTC in the $60,000 to $65,000 range but then, between Aug. 24 and Aug. 30, paid $369.7 million for 4,603 bitcoin at an average of $80,318. On paper, it seemed like the absolute worst trade, but Phong Le does not see it that way.
Speaking on Bloomberg Crypto this week, Strategy’s chief executive called the sale “the right trade at the time to sell bitcoin to fund some of our Stretch dividends,” referring to STRC, the company’s variable-rate preferred stock. He further noted:
“It’s the right trade at this point in time to sell MSTR at a premium to buy bitcoin. We don’t really make decisions specifically on bitcoin’s price.”
The company’s rule seems to be about cost of capital, i.e. sell equity when the stock trades at a premium to its coins, and touch the bitcoin only when equity is the more expensive option. Selling what Le called a “minuscule” slice, less than 1% of the stack, covered the preferred dividends without cheap share issuance.
What the Pause Bought
The 10-week buying freeze was not idle, and Le revealed that Strategy’s net debt went from roughly $7 billion to zero over that stretch, while the firm built about $7 billion in cash. Bitcoin.com News reported on Aug. 24 that Strategy had stockpiled $6.69 billion with holdings frozen at 840,447 BTC.
A week later, the company announced the 4,603-coin purchase, funded by a $602.8 million at-the-market (ATM) stock sale, and said it now runs at 0.0% net leverage. It also repurchased $151.8 million of STRC.
Le has called the result a “bullet-proof balance sheet,” and his argument is that a company with zero net debt and $7 billion in the bank can never be a forced seller, regardless of whatever bitcoin’s price does next.
The Math
- The round trip: Selling 7,000 BTC at a $62,500 midpoint raises about $437 million. Buying the same coins back at $80,318 costs about $562 million. The gap is roughly $125 million, or about 1,500 bitcoins’ worth of purchasing power at today’s price.
- The stack: After the August purchase, Strategy held 845,050 BTC bought for $63.73 billion, an average of $75,412 per coin. At bitcoin’s current price of about $79,700, the pile is worth roughly $67.3 billion, a paper gain near $3.6 billion.
- The chart everyone is sharing: A profit-and-loss visualization, drawn when bitcoin traded above $81,000, puts the unrealized gain at $4.93 billion. That is the swing from a paper loss of more than $10 billion earlier this year to a green number in about six weeks. It flips that fast because every $1,000 move in bitcoin now shifts Strategy’s balance sheet by $845 million.
- The ratio: Le said in August the company had bought about 175,000 BTC in 2026 and sold about 7,000, a buying pace 25 times higher than its selling. The sale looks large in isolation and small next to the year’s accumulation.
In sum, Strategy gave up around $125 million to avoid diluting shareholders at a bad price and to zero out its debt. Whether that was worth it depends on what a clean balance sheet is worth when the next drawdown arrives.
Looking ahead, Le said he does not foresee Strategy selling bitcoin as the firm enters into what he considers “a pretty heavy bull market,” and repeated that the firm is “a net accumulator.” Investors are less convinced. MSTR is down about 22% year to date after an $8.22 billion second-quarter loss tied to fair-value accounting on its coins.