MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’

[Ambatman]

As widely expected, strategy bought Bitcoin again.
They bought a total of 4,871 BTC whose 1,820 via STRC sells.

I can't believe almost 5000 Bitcoin isn't up to a Billion dollar
We heading there that's for sure.

holding which could possible drive Bitcoin price high and attract more people.

Reducing circulating supply doesn't automatically increase price
It just reduces the depth in which funds can make an impact
If the there is demand then the price can fly and vice versa.

[JayJuanGee]

Well?  Maybe I am too invested in such system of using the 200-WMA, which it seems that I had been increasingly gravitating towards using such 200-WMA valuations since around 2020 - and I think my gravitation towards the 200-WMA came before 2020, too.

So then I also built up sustainable withdrawal ideas around such 200-WMA, too.. I think that it is a much better way to valuate a bitcoin stash and to attempt to figure out how to navigate through our bitcoin accumulation...

Yes, I know about that but here we are talking about Strategy and in the case of this company, it makes even less sense to use that calculation method because Saylor doesn’t buy at the lows. Saylor buys heavily at the highs and little or nothing at the lows, so I don’t think it’s accurate to use a calculation method that gives the lows the same weight as the highs for each year. 

Even if Saylor might not be gauging his buys based on the 200-WMA, he still seem to be valuating MSTR's holdings over long term timelines and largely considering any price to be a bargain - including his asserted plan that he never (or almost never) plans to sell.

In my opinion, that metric might be more suitable for an individual who practices a specific form of dollar-cost averaging. Someone who, for example, invests $100 a week in Bitcoin on a regular basis. Normally, no one does it exactly that way, but we can add a couple of variations to that strategy, such as buying more when the price drops significantly, or when you receive a year-end bonus, for example.

Of course, individuals, governments and/or institutions might not be looking at BTC prices when they are in their earliest stages of BTC accumulation, and they will likely slow down when they get enough or more than enough BTC.

In this thread, we have already beaten to death that Strategy is playing a wee bit of a different game since it is both using other peoples money by their consentingly giving them more money or by Strategy outright taking it away from them to dilute the shares of whichever financial product they are taking from in order to buy more bitcoin with those shares.

In some senses, it could be proclaimed that MSTR/Saylor is largely following a DCA strategy, at least in terms of trying to front load their entry into bitcoin and considering all prices to be largely low.. within a kind of time- consideration of where the BTC price might be in 4-10 years or longer.

Because in that case, that person is indeed buying every week—whether at the year’s highs or lows—an amount that will be the same 95% of the time. That’s totally different from what Michael Saylor does.

It does not seem to be totally different in the sense of buying bitcoin at whatever price whenever the money is available.   I would grant that there seems to be a wee bit of money printing going on by Saylor to make more money available than what would have had been available based on regular processes playing out... so in some sense they are forcing the availability of more money and likely measuring their debt to asset ratio being so low that they can afford to print with quite a bit of liberty and latitude.. since they are not significantly/meaningfully indebted in traditional ways of measuring such debt levels.

They are BIG boys and girls, and yeah sure, sometimes adults get tricked.. yet are you wanting to say that there is anything legally actionable about Saylor's/MSTR's behaviors.  I am inclined to notice that you seem to be getting more and More and MOAR worked up about it.  hahahahahaha.. especially after (or around the time that) you sold whatever MSTR related products (or was it just the stock?) that you were holding (or you were experimenting with?, since you were claiming it was a "small" amount).

I bought MSTR stock twice—the first time in 2021 and the last time in 2024–25. The first time, I sold at a profit, and the second time, I broke even. I could be lying and have lost a lot if that’s what you’re implying, but it’s something you won’t be able to verify.

I was mostly just suggesting that you had been getting madder and madder about it, and sure whether your getting madder about it was a result of your selling or maybe you sold because you were getting madder and madder about it prior to your selling.

Surely I can understand some frustration with MSTR whether you lost money or broke even.  There is some manipulation level going on with MSTR, yet at the same time, there was seemed to have had been an untapped market for various products being offered by MSTR snd/or they are discovering ongoing interest in products they are offering, especially the STRC product (so it seems)...

In fact, you don’t even know if I made up the story about buying MSTR stock.

That is fine.  It's a good story. 

Historically in my forum participation, I have tol plenty of stories about my supposed selfie and/or related "hypotheticals" too in order to make various points along the way.

You can speculate all you want that after this second time I’m more critical of Saylor, but by Ockham’s razor, the simplest explanation is that the second time I bought was because I believed Saylor’s pitch, which was in line with the times back then, and since I sold, I tend to be more critical, especially because what he’s saying doesn’t match reality.

There is ONLY so much that any of us can monitor, and surely when any of us are involved in certain products, then we may well be in a better position to pay attention to such products (or underlying dynamics related to such products).

And, even in this thread, there can be ongoing interest from certain forum members in terms of how the various MSTR products end up affecting our dear bitcoin.. and surely Saylor has a wee bit of rock status amongst a lot of bitcoiners, even though there are a good number of bitcoiners who seem to be increasingly frustrated by aspects of him, too.. He does get a lot of attention and he is frequently quoted for his opinion (about Bitcoin or anything related) too.

Yeah but who cares?  He can proclaim what he expects bitcoin to do on average over a long period of time, and bitcoin may or may not do that. So what?  Also, we know that the claim is not even about every year, it is about over a long period of time, and he does not even need to be correct.  People are dumb if they consider Saylor's expectations as guarantees, even if we average out the next 4-6 years and we still see CAGRs way below 30% (what if they are only 3% over the next 6 years.. and that would be 1/10th the claimed amount... so what? Saylor is not bound by his claims about what he expects a commodity, such as bitcoin, to do.).

So, the interest paid on the preferreds is based on a fairy tale a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy (that happens to be about the future, which is a wee bit of an unknown, anyhow).

FTFY.... hahahahahaha

If you think that bitcoin is mature or even close to mature, you are likely to be wrong.... even though you are free to believe whatever you like.  
 

Well, I think it is definitely more mature than when it was worth less than $1 per coin but I think I get what you mean.

I mean, what are we going to argue in regards to adoption levels?  1%?  5%? or some other number?  I probably would argue in the 1% of world-wide adoption.. .but then perhaps in certain circles adoption levels are higher.. and then ware we going to distinguish between actual HODLers and the HODLers of paper bitcoin - and yeah, there are a lot of "fairy tales" going on in a lot of different markets around the world and in the other ways of the world, too...  which "fairy tale" are we going to choose?  Maybe we can choose my 200-WMA fairy tale, even though you seem to be considering it as not too relevant?

Sure, adoption need not continue, and bitcoin could end up withering on the vein, perhaps? perhaps?  I doubt bitcoin is going away any time soon (perhaps not within our life-times, even though anything can happen).

It is true that we have a lot of BIGGER players chiming into the bitcoin battle.. and either trying to break it, tame it or coopt it... so yeah, these current battles can result in uncertainties.. Maybe the bullshit happening in Iran is indirectly related to bitcoin, too?

Not only that. Why did the price of Bitcoin drop in 2025 when Saylor alone bought more Bitcoins than all those that had been mined?

Paper bitcoin?

A big part of the reason is that Bitcoin has become “Wall Street-ized.” With covered calls, futures, and options, you can drive down the price of Bitcoin without actually owning the underlying asset.

Maybe it is unclear about the extent to which paper bitcoiners are going to get punished, since it is much easier to transfer the actual bitcoin as compared with other paper market products (gold, silver and perhaps some others), yet in the end, if actual bitcoin are not being moved around to verify, then no one seems to be being punished including not having any price differential in the market, either, between paper bitcoin and actual bitcoin.

What you seem to be implying here seems to be part of the battle in regards to the various paper products that are both corrupting bitcoin prices, yet seem to be inevitably part of any attempt to transition bitcoin or to increase various aspects of its adoption, even though various aspect of the various paper bitcoin products undermine quite a few aspect of what bring power to bitcoin.. .. and at the same time, the various powers that be likely want the powers (and features) of bitcoin for themselves, but they don't want the normies to be able to benefit from self-sovereignty, privacy in transactions and/or any of the various benefits that remain potentials that can come through bitcoin...

That wasn't exactly what I was talking about in the quote, but it ties in with what I just said. Yes.

It can be difficult to put our fingers on the extent to which price is manipulated by paper bitcoin products, and I would not be surprised if several of our concerns in the paper bitcoin department are shared even though we might be getting feelings for different parts of the elephant.

Yes, I know about that but here we are talking about Strategy and in the case of this company, it makes even less sense to use that calculation method because Saylor doesn’t buy at the lows. Saylor buys heavily at the highs and little or nothing at the lows, so I don’t think it’s accurate to use a calculation method that gives the lows the same weight as the highs for each year.  In my opinion, that metric might be more suitable for an individual who practices a specific form of dollar-cost averaging. Someone who, for example, invests $100 a week in Bitcoin on a regular basis. Normally, no one does it exactly that way, but we can add a couple of variations to that strategy, such as buying more when the price drops significantly, or when you receive a year-end bonus, for example. Because in that case, that person is indeed buying every week—whether at the year’s highs or lows—an amount that will be the same 95% of the time. That’s totally different from what Michael Saylor does.

Strategy and Michael Saylor are more similar to gamblers then experienced and careful investors. They are over leveraged from their company treasury and they are very bad with risk management too.

They have made a lot of noise in Bitcoin community but in capital and risk management, I have never seen them as a good role model for Bitcoin investors from institutional investors to retail investors to follow. Bad capital and risk management is beginning of possible nightmare, failure and bankruptcy in the future.

Strategy have not bought bitcoins likely with DCA strategy as they have never used a same capital for each of their bitcoin purchases. What they have purchased so far is like very arbitrarily, sometimes they bought bitcoin with very big fund and sometimes they purchased bitcoin with very small fund.

There are even reasonable arguments that MSTR are not really buying bitcoin.. .but difficult to really know... ..

[fillippone]

They are continuously buying at the dip, and it's great to see them have the courage to do such actions.

I would say that everything outside Strategy is irrelevant to Ssylor. The only thing that can stop him from buying is the lack of funds. He has demonstrated recently. The hiatus in the buying series was not in rhythm with price action. Price is the last factor he is looking at.

[Free Market Capitalist]

Because in that case, that person is indeed buying every week—whether at the year’s highs or lows—an amount that will be the same 95% of the time. That’s totally different from what Michael Saylor does.

It does not seem to be totally different in the sense of buying bitcoin at whatever price whenever the money is available.   I would grant that there seems to be a wee bit of money printing going on by Saylor to make more money available than what would have had been available based on regular processes playing out... so in some sense they are forcing the availability of more money and likely measuring their debt to asset ratio being so low that they can afford to print with quite a bit of liberty and latitude.. since they are not significantly/meaningfully indebted in traditional ways of measuring such debt levels.

It is totally different. Someone doing DCA since August 2020 has a 125% return on the money invested whereas Strategy has a negative return.

So, the interest paid on the preferreds is based on a fairy tale a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy (that happens to be about the future, which is a wee bit of an unknown, anyhow).

FTFY.... hahahahahaha

Yeah, funny, but if it’s a future potential self-fulfilling prophecy, deep down you know it’s based on nothing. It’s based on the expectation that buying pressure from STRC will drive the price of Bitcoin up so much that it will achieve that 30% CAGR (which has to be on the money invested, not Bitcoin’s CAGR). That’s why I say that with other regulators, the authorities would crack down on Strategy because if you’re involved in this, you might believe the story, but dividends have to be paid based on facts—or rather, on profits—not on something you hope will come true in the future and that hasn’t materialized yet.

STRC is trading around $100 this week, by the way, so I suppose we’ll see a major purchase announced next Monday.

What you call “getting madder,” I call something else. Unfortunately, I think I’m the person on this forum who knows the most about how Bitcoin treasury companies operate. I’m not the most knowledgeable about how Bitcoin works, history, economics, or other topics, but when it comes to how Bitcoin treasury companies operate, I haven’t yet found anyone—either in this thread or others—who has made me think they know more about the subject than I do. And that’s a shame because I think most of them won’t have a future.

Their business model is based on the idea that any failing or stagnant business can become highly profitable by copying Strategy’s model. And if Strategy has been struggling for the past year, those who adopted the model during that time have fared even worse. Look at Nakamoto or American Bitcoin, for example.

The very knowledge I gained when I believed in the model is what now makes me doubt it. Especially with Strategy's STRC. MSTR, the common stock ,is fine; the issue is that as Strategy’s Bitcoin stash has grown larger, it has undermined the possibility of people paying high multiples of MNAV. Saylor is aware of this, which is why lately (both he and Phong Lee) have been talking about nothing but STRC.

[Ambatman]

It is totally different. Someone doing DCA since August 2020 has a 125% return on the money invested whereas Strategy has a negative return.

Who?
And how was it calculated
What constituted the average price
What affected Strategy is the fact that majority of their coins were bought above $70K
And buying above $100K didn't really help their case
But that's what it means to DCA.

[fillippone]

Quite a big week for STRC: market has yet to close, but they Strategy has already raked up more than 8,500 BTC this week:



I see a pretty decent buying announcement on Monday!

[Ambatman]

Quite a big week for STRC: market has yet to close, but they Strategy has already raked up more than 8,500 BTC this week:

I see a pretty decent buying announcement on Monday!

Where can this information be found
It would be easier to gauge strategy purchase before announcement
I'm assuming the estimated Bitcoin is the amount assumed to have been directed towards Bitcoin (everything) and not actual
Since that would mean
Their address are public and their holdings can be really found.

[fillippone]

the website is strc.live, and it's not an official one. It's not related to Strategy.

They check whenever STRC is trading above par and use the volume traded above that level as an estimate for the ATM usage.
Then, they estimate 50% of the proceeds of such sells go to purchasing bitcoin.
On that website there is a backtest of how successfully they tracked the buying: I would say they are very successful, until they are very wrong! so, there is still something missing (MSTR ATM feature maybe?)

[liuka]

Quite a big week for STRC: market has yet to close, but they Strategy has already raked up more than 8,500 BTC this week:



I see a pretty decent buying announcement on Monday!

There's even a poll about Strategy BTC purchases. If you say Strategy X has purchased 8,500 BTC, there's a chance they could reach over 10,000 BTC by Monday. They're a giant slowly moving towards a million BTC in their portfolio. That's a staggering number.



https://x.com/i/status/2042694905898619390

[JayJuanGee]

Because in that case, that person is indeed buying every week—whether at the year’s highs or lows—an amount that will be the same 95% of the time. That’s totally different from what Michael Saylor does.

It does not seem to be totally different in the sense of buying bitcoin at whatever price whenever the money is available.   I would grant that there seems to be a wee bit of money printing going on by Saylor to make more money available than what would have had been available based on regular processes playing out... so in some sense they are forcing the availability of more money and likely measuring their debt to asset ratio being so low that they can afford to print with quite a bit of liberty and latitude.. since they are not significantly/meaningfully indebted in traditional ways of measuring such debt levels.

It is totally different. Someone doing DCA since August 2020 has a 125% return on the money invested whereas Strategy has a negative return.

I will concede that the levels of returns (or being in the positive or negative on paper) are different with Saylor as compared with an average normie bitcoin buyer based on bitcoin buys being made when the money comes available (which tends to be when the bitcoin price is going up or even when the BTC price is high), yet I am not going to concede that what he is doing is much different from DCA and/or materially different enough in order to get all worked up about how different that it is, when he is largely just performing some variation of DCA that he believes works for him and his views that bitcoin is ongoingly on sale as long as it is under a million and/or that bitcoin is going to pump forever.

Sure, he is also using debt and/or engaging in various maneuvers to squeeze out more dollars from whatever financial instruments that he has in order to ongoingly buy more bitcoin, whether the BTC price is high, low or sideways, even though Saylor seems to get more excited when the price is going up... and, yeah, maybe Saylor has some kind of a psychological problem in which he considers that he is always missing out that is triggered more when the BTC price is going up.

By the way, there are likely examples of normies who engage in similar kinds of conduct in their DCA as Saylor does, even if these normie peeps might not be working with as much capital and/or financial instruments as Saylor / MSTR happens to have....and there are folks who their conviction goes up as the BTC price is going up and/or there are people who may well be in their earning years (their income growing years) and they buy more and more bitcoin as their financials get better and better and better through their earning years and they may well be getting promotions that increase their income and facilitate their abilities to buy more bitcoin, even though with the passage of time the cost of bitcoin had been ongoingly going up,  yet they are buying based on their better income status in later years and their abilities to buy that had not existed in their earlier years..

In other words, I will assert that you are largely making a distinction without a difference in terms of your proclamation or concern that Saylor's/MSTR's average cost per BTC is higher than it should be and/or could be if conditions were better and if if he/MSTR were buying bitcoin in a more measured and calculated way... which is exactly part of the point of DCA.. which is not really proclaiming to know short term bitcoin price changes and accordingly not to giving too many shits about if the BTC price is high, low or sideways and to consider that in the longer term, whether 4-10 years or longer (and Saylor is probably thinking in 30 years or longer, even though he might be getting close to dead in that far into the future)...

Saylor/MSTR is also likely thinking that 30-50 years down the road, it is likely not going to matter too much, in the whole scheme of things, if he/MSTR paid an average of $20k per coin, $50k per coin, $75k per coin or $125k per coin?   Sure, we all like to get better prices so that we can get more coins for our dollars, yet we hardly can have confidence regarding which direction the BTC price is going to go in the short-to-medium term.... Accordingly, the more important factor will seem to be (in 30-50 years) how many coins he/MSTR has been able to accumulate through the ups, downs, and sideways rather than how much per coin they may or may not have had had ended up paying.

So, the interest paid on the preferreds is based on a fairy tale a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy (that happens to be about the future, which is a wee bit of an unknown, anyhow).

FTFY.... hahahahahaha

Yeah, funny, but if it’s a future potential self-fulfilling prophecy, deep down you know it’s based on nothing.

How could I know that Saylor is wrong or that his products are not going to fit sufficiently well?  I have been arguing with you over several posts (and maybe even several months), and maybe it is because I agree with Saylor's vision more than you agree with him? My agreement might not be exact even though it largely involves presumptions that everything will work themselves out so long as the underlying asset goes up in value in the longer term, even if there might be some negative bumps along the way.

At the same time, I am not sure why Saylor seems to want to become an existential risk - or even a national security risk... so I would agree that there does seem to be something weird in regards to Saylor and his company... while at the same time, I consider that there is a lot value in bitcoin's ongoing paradigm-shifting, sound money thesis that continues to fuel it with a somewhat inevitable upward trajectory

It’s based on the expectation that buying pressure from STRC will drive the price of Bitcoin up so much that it will achieve that 30% CAGR (which has to be on the money invested, not Bitcoin’s CAGR).

I would not claim to know this, but if STRC is meant to allow Saylor to receive more money than what he would have had otherwise had, then he ends up with more bitcoin since he is buying bitcoin with that extra money, so sure, in theory, in the long run, the amount that he is paying out should be less than the profits that he ends up getting in order for the amount that he is paying out to be worth it.

That’s why I say that with other regulators, the authorities would crack down on Strategy because if you’re involved in this, you might believe the story, but dividends have to be paid based on facts—or rather, on profits—not on something you hope will come true in the future and that hasn’t materialized yet.

I am not sure if that is true.  Of course, the more he is in profits above the 11.5% costs then there would not be a problem, yet if he is running the product at a loss for a while, then he has to get the money from somewhere to support the product, and it would not make any sense if the product has to consistently pay  out more than BTC's returns, in the even that bitcoin's CAGR is less than 11.5%.

STRC is trading around $100 this week, by the way, so I suppose we’ll see a major purchase announced next Monday.

What you call “getting madder,” I call something else. Unfortunately, I think I’m the person on this forum who knows the most about how Bitcoin treasury companies operate. I’m not the most knowledgeable about how Bitcoin works, history, economics, or other topics, but when it comes to how Bitcoin treasury companies operate, I haven’t yet found anyone—either in this thread or others—who has made me think they know more about the subject than I do. And that’s a shame because I think most of them won’t have a future.

With Strategy, it seems that you need to know about treasury companies, bitcoin and also the innovative products that are being offered by Saylor/MSTR.  You cannot necessarily just get locked into one angle, and yeah, we all have our perspectives, which may be right or wrong, and it is likely that our investment approach will be kept in check based on our knowledge and/or comfort about the assets that we buy, so we can choose our position size in any asset in accordance with our comfort level, and we do not necessarily need to be an expert, especially when it comes to predicting the future.. .since the future is a set of probabilities, and it might be dangerous if we were to go all or nothing into any particular vision of the future rather than hedging our bets in various ways.

Another thing that if we are investing no more than we can afford to lose, then we may well be willing to ride out our various investments based on a bit of ignorance of the future, yet at the same time, we are betting with a hope to be better off by having had invested rather than not invested, so we are not investing in order to lose, even though we may well realize that extreme negative scenarios could end up playing out.

Their business model is based on the idea that any failing or stagnant business can become highly profitable by copying Strategy’s model. And if Strategy has been struggling for the past year, those who adopted the model during that time have fared even worse. Look at Nakamoto or American Bitcoin, for example.

I am not sure if anyone needs to be  an expert to realize that it is not good to invest beyond your means, otherwise the operation is a ponzi scheme rather something that is going to make money, and surely it is even worse if there is a cascading lack of confidence that drive the stock prices way below the NAV of the assets that they hold.

The very knowledge I gained when I believed in the model is what now makes me doubt it. Especially with Strategy's STRC. MSTR, the common stock ,is fine; the issue is that as Strategy’s Bitcoin stash has grown larger, it has undermined the possibility of people paying high multiples of MNAV. Saylor is aware of this, which is why lately (both he and Phong Lee) have been talking about nothing but STRC.

Fair enough.

It is totally different. Someone doing DCA since August 2020 has a 125% return on the money invested whereas Strategy has a negative return.

Who?
And how was it calculated
What constituted the average price
What affected Strategy is the fact that majority of their coins were bought above $70K
And buying above $100K didn't really help their case
But that's what it means to DCA.

The 200-WMA measures the average trade-weighted price over 4 years (which would be back to April 2022), and that is currently $59,573..  There are ways to go back further and to measure what an average would be going back to August 2020.

I did a quickie approximation and used a DCA calculator and adjusted the weekly buy amount from August 2020 to present until the amount accumulated equaled 1 BTC (which end up being $120 per week) to get an average cost per BTC of $35,640.  https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/dollar-cost-averaging-calculator

There are relatively accurate ways to calculate these kinds of hypotheticals, even though actual individual performance is likely to deviate from the averages based on how the individuals actually puts their bitcoin buys into practice.

Frequently, I argue with forum members (especially with the trading and the shitcoin twats) about the difficulties in beating DCA averages in bitcoin, especially if we start to look back and calculate averages over 8 years or longer.

Quite a big week for STRC: market has yet to close, but they Strategy has already raked up more than 8,500 BTC this week:

I see a pretty decent buying announcement on Monday!

Where can this information be found
It would be easier to gauge strategy purchase before announcement
I'm assuming the estimated Bitcoin is the amount assumed to have been directed towards Bitcoin (everything) and not actual
Since that would mean
Their address are public and their holdings can be really found.

One of the criticisms of Strategy has come from their not sharing their addresses.

[fillippone]

A very interesting read on Strategy, an the way their “infinite money glitch” was actually detrimental to bitcoin bull run.

How Paper Bitcoin Ate the Bitcoin Bull Market

New money enters at a premium. That premium subsidizes earlier participants and funds the structure's obligations. The structure requires continuous inflows to maintain the premium. When inflows slow, the premium collapses. Late entrants absorb the losses. Early entrants and insiders who sold near the top retain the value.

The disclosed facts: Strategy's mNAV went from 3.89x to ~1.09x.6 Its stock fell 80%.7 Its founder sold ~370,000 shares for ~$372.7 million near peak premium in early 2024, before the most aggressive dilution.9 Preferred holders collect escalating dividends funded by further issuance or, if necessary, bitcoin sales.414 Common shareholders who entered at high premiums hold a subordinated, diluted claim on bitcoin they could have bought directly.

This is not a claim of illegality. The disclosures warned about every risk described here.

Interesting read. A little bit biased, but we know John is quite a character!

[Ryu_Ar1]

Where can this information be found
It would be easier to gauge strategy purchase before announcement
I'm assuming the estimated Bitcoin is the amount assumed to have been directed towards Bitcoin (everything) and not actual
Since that would mean
Their address are public and their holdings can be really found.

One of the criticisms of Strategy has come from their not sharing their addresses.

Saylor is still sticking to his guns as he still thinks that transparency as a form of PoR is not a good idea and could potentially compromise security so he has no intention of doing so.
This will obviously have its pros and cons but Saylor doesn't seem to care about that and is only focused on his goals.  It seems to come down to the individual's will even though PoR as a form of transparency is good but when he thinks it's not a good idea and considers it another security risk then it's hard to change that.


https://x.com/MitchellAskew/status/1927175496074182798

[JayJuanGee]

A very interesting read on Strategy, an the way their “infinite money glitch” was actually detrimental to bitcoin bull run.
How Paper Bitcoin Ate the Bitcoin Bull Market

New money enters at a premium. That premium subsidizes earlier participants and funds the structure's obligations. The structure requires continuous inflows to maintain the premium. When inflows slow, the premium collapses. Late entrants absorb the losses. Early entrants and insiders who sold near the top retain the value.

The disclosed facts: Strategy's mNAV went from 3.89x to ~1.09x.6 Its stock fell 80%.7 Its founder sold ~370,000 shares for ~$372.7 million near peak premium in early 2024, before the most aggressive dilution.9 Preferred holders collect escalating dividends funded by further issuance or, if necessary, bitcoin sales.414 Common shareholders who entered at high premiums hold a subordinated, diluted claim on bitcoin they could have bought directly.

This is not a claim of illegality. The disclosures warned about every risk described here.

Interesting read. A little bit biased, but we know John is quite a character!

I skimmed it - meaning that I did not read the article in detail, yet I wonder how you are considering Carvahlo to be biased?  

You think that Carvahlo biased because he does not like paper bitcoin?

I understand that bitcoin holders cannot really stop various ways that bitcoin custodians are creating paper bitcoin and/or claims on bitcoin that may well not be backed up by bitcoin or even close to 1 to 1.  

Surely the whole matter of how many bitcoin are backing up the claims to bitcoin ends up being a slippery slope to even proclaim that some levels of non-backing might be acceptable, such as 1 to 2 or even 1 to 3, since as soon as some lack of backing ends up being allowed with custodians, then the back up requirements can continue to gravitate downward and downward - even the sourcing of the bitcoin, or how long that custodians are allowed to have before the buy (or sell) the bitcoin that is supposed to be backing the shares that they had sold.

There are a decent number of custodians that claim that they are reporting (disclosing) their proof of reserves, and surely some ways of disclosing proof of reserves is more tamper proof than others.  Despite claims that proof of reserve is being done, I frequently get the sense that proof of reserve are quite inadequate - to keep bitcoin price manipulation in check.

Even my quickie attempt to ask Google AI, I was not completely satisfied with the results.  There are several custodians claiming to employ proof of reserves, even though I had an impression that River was amongst the best in the proof of reserves reporting department... so I prompted by using River as a comparison point.  



The results do seems to suggest that River and Kraken are on a similar level in their ways of using 3-rd party attestations and Merkle trees, which I am not claiming to have had studied the matter enough to develop a strong opinion on the matter, except my relatively strong opinion related to my ongoing suspicions that paper bitcoin are being frequently bought and sold..

It is likely that there are levels to egregiousness, including questions about who will end up bailing out whom (usually retail pays) if some of the "not enough coins to cover claims" ends up playing out.. I am not going to claim the solution exactly, beyond desires for individuals, companies and/or governments to take decent portions of their coins into self-custody, and perhaps not contracting away their rights to demand physical receipt of their coins on relative short notice, even having rights to take possession of the coins (keys) within a week would be relatively powerful to potentially keep some of the custodians in check in regards to the quantity of coins they have to back up the claims over bitcoin that they say that they supposedly have.

Given some of the ways that proposed legislation has been being discussed in recent times, it is not even clear if we can seek friendliness in government officials to even maintain some reserve requirements on custodians without other language that may well otherwise hinder rights for privacy and obstacle limitations in regards to self-custody rights for those who may well believe that they have claims to actual coins.

Many times, including in the case of Saylor/MSTR products, even though Saylor/MSTR might be talking about bitcoins per share, they are not suggesting that share holders/or the purchasers of other MSTR products have any rights for in-kind redemption (to bitcoin) in regards to any shares and/or derivative products that they might be buying.

Where can this information be found
It would be easier to gauge strategy purchase before announcement
I'm assuming the estimated Bitcoin is the amount assumed to have been directed towards Bitcoin (everything) and not actual
Since that would mean
Their address are public and their holdings can be really found.

One of the criticisms of Strategy has come from their not sharing their addresses.

Saylor is still sticking to his guns as he still thinks that transparency as a form of PoR is not a good idea and could potentially compromise security so he has no intention of doing so.

I am fairly confident that there have been quite a few regular forum members (perhaps even in this here thread?) who have argued that Saylor's lack of disclosure choices are fairly lame - especially since he is a public company and he also supposedly owns a pretty large percentage of the available bitcoin.

This will obviously have its pros and cons but Saylor doesn't seem to care about that and is only focused on his goals.

Of course, there are several ways in which Saylor can do whatever he likes in regards to his bitcoin and his company's bitcoin (even though surely the company has more obligations towards disclosure than Saylor has as an individual), even though there are several aspects of what Saylor/MSTR does and how Saylor talks about bitcoin to be in tension with the various direct custody aspects of bitcoin that brings power and value to bitcoin... even though power in bitcoin can come from small, medium and/or large players being able to transact directly with it.....and of course, there are various other ways that bitcoin is powerful too, especially in terms of its money-ness whether referring to big or small players (i.e. scarcity, ease of transacting, verifiability, divisibility, low transaction/storage costs, etc etc.).

It seems to come down to the individual's will even though PoR as a form of transparency is good but when he thinks it's not a good idea and considers it another security risk then it's hard to change that.

Saylor is not acting as an individual.  He is purposefully using a public company to carry out his bitcoin business.  Also, he can still be criticized for the choices that he is making and the reasons that he is proclaiming to be justified in making his choices.

https://x.com/MitchellAskew/status/1927175496074182798

By the way Ryu_Ar1, if you put all caps in your "WIDTH" then the width will end up showing in its default amount.  You need to use lower case "width" if you want the forum's script to adjust your image size in accordance with your chosen width..   Look what your earlier chosen width of 100 does?

[Free Market Capitalist]

A very interesting read on Strategy, an the way their “infinite money glitch” was actually detrimental to bitcoin bull run.

How Paper Bitcoin Ate the Bitcoin Bull Market

See? At least I'm not the only one who says things like that. I didn't know that guy.

The disclosed facts: Strategy's mNAV went from 3.89x to ~1.09x.6 Its stock fell 80%.7 Its founder sold ~370,000 shares for ~$372.7 million near peak premium in early 2024, before the most aggressive dilution.9 Preferred holders collect escalating dividends funded by further issuance or, if necessary, bitcoin sales.414 Common shareholders who entered at high premiums hold a subordinated, diluted claim on bitcoin they could have bought directly.

This is not a claim of illegality. The disclosures warned about every risk described here.

It is not a claim of illegality because saying that publicly might set Saylor's lawyers on the case, but it reeks of something fishy. You sell a ton of shares right before slashing the MNAV, all while telling people that the MNAV multiples are the reason they should buy MSTR?

I will concede that the levels of returns (or being in the positive or negative on paper) are different with Saylor as compared with an average normie bitcoin buyer based on bitcoin buys being made when the money comes available (which tends to be when the bitcoin price is going up or even when the BTC price is high), yet I am not going to concede that what he is doing is much different from DCA and/or materially different enough in order to get all worked up about how different that it is, when he is largely just performing some variation of DCA that he believes works for him

But it doesn't. The variation in DCA—what I call “reverse DCA”—is the key issue that Saylor should clarify. He talks about Bitcoin CAGR but never talks about how his reverse DCA achieves a much lower return.

So, the interest paid on the preferreds is based on a fairy tale a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy (that happens to be about the future, which is a wee bit of an unknown, anyhow).

FTFY.... hahahahahaha

Yeah, funny, but if it’s a future potential self-fulfilling prophecy, deep down you know it’s based on nothing.

How could I know that Saylor is wrong or that his products are not going to fit sufficiently well?  I have been arguing with you over several posts (and maybe even several months), and maybe it is because I agree with Saylor's vision more than you agree with him? My agreement might not be exact even though it largely involves presumptions that everything will work themselves out so long as the underlying asset goes up in value in the longer term, even if there might be some negative bumps along the way.

But we're back to square one. He's basing the dividend payment on a hope, not on anything concrete. 

That’s why I say that with other regulators, the authorities would crack down on Strategy because if you’re involved in this, you might believe the story, but dividends have to be paid based on facts—or rather, on profits—not on something you hope will come true in the future and that hasn’t materialized yet.

I am not sure if that is true.

Name another financial product that pays dividends based on hope.

Dividends are paid out of profits, and if a company strays from that, it’s because a company that used to pay dividends has started taking on too much debt but wants to keep paying the same dividends—which is reflected in the stock price, causing it to fall.

[JayJuanGee]

That’s why I say that with other regulators, the authorities would crack down on Strategy because if you’re involved in this, you might believe the story, but dividends have to be paid based on facts—or rather, on profits—not on something you hope will come true in the future and that hasn’t materialized yet.

I am not sure if that is true.

Name another financial product that pays dividends based on hope.
Dividends are paid out of profits, and if a company strays from that, it’s because a company that used to pay dividends has started taking on too much debt but wants to keep paying the same dividends—which is reflected in the stock price, causing it to fall.

I don't see why I would have any burden to provide any evidence to establish why MSTR is doing something solid, and sure it all may well be a pyramid scheme, even though he has all kinds of attention on himself and the products that he is providing. and there seems to be a demand for such products based on other people having similar hope to what Saylor is saying.  It is not that Saylor is converting folks into buying MSTR, since many folks seem to be breaking down doors to get into various MSTR products that seem to provide a niche that is not otherwise in the market.  I have no clue if it is going to be successful or not or if it could survive draw downs even close to as great as Saylor is proclaiming it capable of sustaining.. and in the end, if the BTC price ends up going up to even breaking prior ATHs within a year or two and even get some spot price performance 10% higher than our prior ATH, then the STRC likely ended up paying for itself.

Whether bitcoin will perform so well, is not even within my specialty to predict.  I don't tend to make solid predictions, and I largely just buy what I consider to be good for my own situation.  I might even want to buy STRC if I were able to easily get into it in order to have some cashflow to offset my BTC holdings... so let's say that I put less than 5% of my BTC into STRC, then what harm would be done?  I would be receiving 11.5% interest and even if the interest rate were to go up and/or down, I probably would be beating any other place that I could get such dollar interest (if that is what I want).. and so it is even a reasonable portion of my bitcoin holdings if I were to do it... so there are plenty of folks who may well be just doing some relatively low risk percentage into STRC.. I don't claim to know what people are doing and I have doubts that the product is going to crash or cascade into oblivion, even though surely anything can happen, yet there can be ways to apportion so that not too much is being invested into such a hedging product.

[Free Market Capitalist]

That’s why I say that with other regulators, the authorities would crack down on Strategy because if you’re involved in this, you might believe the story, but dividends have to be paid based on facts—or rather, on profits—not on something you hope will come true in the future and that hasn’t materialized yet.

I am not sure if that is true.

Name another financial product that pays dividends based on hope.
Dividends are paid out of profits, and if a company strays from that, it’s because a company that used to pay dividends has started taking on too much debt but wants to keep paying the same dividends—which is reflected in the stock price, causing it to fall.

I don't see why I would have any burden to provide any evidence to establish why MSTR is doing something solid, and sure it all may well be a pyramid scheme, even though he has all kinds of attention on himself and the products that he is providing. and there seems to be a demand for such products based on other people having similar hope to what Saylor is saying.

I asked you for proof because I claimed that other regulators would be breathing down Strategy’s neck. I’m thinking of European regulators, for example, but consider Gary Gensler, the former SEC chairman. I really don't think he would allow a financial product based on a false hypothesis -as of today- and the hope that at some point in the future will come true to be marketed as a safe alternative to bank deposits. Then you said "I am not sure if that is true" and then is when I have asked you to name one other product that pays dividends based on such a hope.

I might even want to buy STRC if I were able to easily get into it in order to have some cashflow to offset my BTC holdings... so let's say that I put less than 5% of my BTC into STRC, then what harm would be done? 

It can be an option. I can see why you would want to do that. And 5% would be a reasonable percentage.

I would be receiving 11.5% interest and even if the interest rate were to go up and/or down, I probably would be beating any other place that I could get such dollar interest (if that is what I want).. and so it is even a reasonable portion of my bitcoin holdings if I were to do it... so there are plenty of folks who may well be just doing some relatively low risk percentage into STRC. I don't claim to know what people are doing and I have doubts that the product is going to crash or cascade into oblivion, even though surely anything can happen, yet there can be ways to apportion so that not too much is being invested into such a hedging product.

Obviously, the appeal of STRC lies in the interest it pays. But there’s a relationship between return and risk that’s basic economics: if you have safe investments that pay 3% and this one pays 11.5%, it’s because it’s significantly riskier than putting your money in a money market fund or buying T-bills.

To round out the numbers, let’s say it will pay an average of 10% over the next few years. To recoup your investment, you’d need to hold STRC for 10 years, and after that, you’d have unlimited returns. Will Strategy be able to sustain that payout over the next 10 years? That’s the question. I think we’ll know whether that interest is sustainable in a few years—by 2030 at the latest.

[fillippone]

As expected, quite a sizeable purchase from Strategy:



STRC buying was only a minority fraction of the total size. So looking for the extra part of the funding.

[Donneski]

As expected, quite a sizeable purchase from Strategy:



STRC buying was only a minority fraction of the total size. So looking for the extra part of the funding.

I think it just actually comes down to the size of the buy.

If STRC is only a minority part of the total like you said, then the rest has to be coming from somewhere else whether that is cash they already have, debt or other funding options.

So simply looking at STRC alone won't really give you the clear picture of how these buys are actually being financed.

[Free Market Capitalist]

STRC buying was only a minority fraction of the total size. So looking for the extra part of the funding.

 

STRC accounted for 100% of the buy. I think this was the first time.



https://www.strategy.com/press/strategy-acquires-13927-btc-now-holds-780897-btc_04-13-2026

https://assets.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf8d808d9b8cebd37/blt3d42b5dfaeefd97a/69dc6fdaa22d2281611ded4f/form-8-k_04-13-2026.pdf

[JayJuanGee]

That’s why I say that with other regulators, the authorities would crack down on Strategy because if you’re involved in this, you might believe the story, but dividends have to be paid based on facts—or rather, on profits—not on something you hope will come true in the future and that hasn’t materialized yet.

I am not sure if that is true.

Name another financial product that pays dividends based on hope.
Dividends are paid out of profits, and if a company strays from that, it’s because a company that used to pay dividends has started taking on too much debt but wants to keep paying the same dividends—which is reflected in the stock price, causing it to fall.

I don't see why I would have any burden to provide any evidence to establish why MSTR is doing something solid, and sure it all may well be a pyramid scheme, even though he has all kinds of attention on himself and the products that he is providing. and there seems to be a demand for such products based on other people having similar hope to what Saylor is saying.

I asked you for proof because I claimed that other regulators would be breathing down Strategy’s neck. I’m thinking of European regulators, for example, but consider Gary Gensler, the former SEC chairman. I really don't think he would allow a financial product based on a false hypothesis -as of today- and the hope that at some point in the future will come true to be marketed as a safe alternative to bank deposits. Then you said "I am not sure if that is true" and then is when I have asked you to name one other product that pays dividends based on such a hope.

I suppose that I am arm-chair winging it.  It is not like I want to study those financialized products in detail.  Even if I were to buy STRC and put maybe 5% the size of my bitcoin into it. I might not even be interested in looking into it or how it might compare with other products.  I would merely see that I can earn 11.5% on my cash, and as long as I felt confident enough that I wasn't going to lose it .. then I might buy it without researching into it further.  If I was putting higher portions of my wealth - or if I were interested in it like bitcoin, then maybe I would look further into it.. yet even with bitcoin, there is ONLY so much research that I do, and I consider a lot of my own interest revolves around cashflow management and superficial knowledge.. and perhaps figuring out ways to be balanced in order to be prepared for price movements in either direction... . yet there are still a lot of things that I don't know or look into based on time constraints.  There are always little projects and little side projects, so ONLY so many hours in a day.

I might even want to buy STRC if I were able to easily get into it in order to have some cashflow to offset my BTC holdings... so let's say that I put less than 5% of my BTC into STRC, then what harm would be done? 

It can be an option. I can see why you would want to do that. And 5% would be a reasonable percentage.

There are various ways that guys might want to think about supplementing cashflows if they had considering themselves largely reaching over accumulation status.. so then the money would provide income to supplement other income...and perhaps even providing reasons to not sell other portions of the bitcoin holdings, such as if something like ONLY a 5% position were to be taken into something like STRC.  I would not necessarily consider myself a "sell-out." 

By the way, i am speaking hypothetically at this particular moment because I have some other things that I am working on in my own personal life that I feel that I have to do first.

I would be receiving 11.5% interest and even if the interest rate were to go up and/or down, I probably would be beating any other place that I could get such dollar interest (if that is what I want).. and so it is even a reasonable portion of my bitcoin holdings if I were to do it... so there are plenty of folks who may well be just doing some relatively low risk percentage into STRC. I don't claim to know what people are doing and I have doubts that the product is going to crash or cascade into oblivion, even though surely anything can happen, yet there can be ways to apportion so that not too much is being invested into such a hedging product.

Obviously, the appeal of STRC lies in the interest it pays. But there’s a relationship between return and risk that’s basic economics: if you have safe investments that pay 3% and this one pays 11.5%, it’s because it’s significantly riskier than putting your money in a money market fund or buying T-bills.

Most of my cash that I have allocated as investment ready, which might currently be around 2% of my bitcoin size, is not earning any interest... So I would have to consider holding more cash.. which probably I would consciously do when bitcoin is going up rather when it seems that we are stuck in a kind of bottom range... Probably historically I had not been keeping as much cash as I should, and probably it would be good to earn better returns on it.. and yeah, I understand the higher interest payment being based on an unknown product, but I think that it is also calculated by MSTR based on their expectations of future returns that they believe will exceed 11.5%.. but that does not necessarily put my own principle at more risk if I were to place it with them in the event that I were to want to get my principle back. 

To round out the numbers, let’s say it will pay an average of 10% over the next few years. To recoup your investment, you’d need to hold STRC for 10 years, and after that, you’d have unlimited returns. Will Strategy be able to sustain that payout over the next 10 years? That’s the question. I think we’ll know whether that interest is sustainable in a few years—by 2030 at the latest.

I doubt it matters since it is around the better returns on the market.. and I could pull my money out at any time if I were to lose confidence in it or if I come to conclude that it is not otherwise working for me.