Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl said Strategy's ability to accumulate additional bitcoin is constrained at current STRC and MSTR share prices, suggesting that "other buyers will need to step in for bitcoin's price to establish a sustainable bottom."
Pandl's comments came after Strategy (MSTR) disclosed earlier this week that it sold 32 bitcoin (BTC) for about $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per BTC, reducing its total holdings to 843,706 BTC. The transaction marked the first time Strategy has sold bitcoin since December 2022.
In a note published Thursday, Pandl said the sale was small relative to Strategy's total BTC holdings. However, he argued that the shift in the company's treasury management weighed on market sentiment already roiled by ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.
According to the note, volatility has also fed into Strategy's variable rate perpetual preferred stock Stretch (STRC), which is designed to trade near $100 and currently pays an 11.5% dividend. A share price below that level raises required investor returns and could increase dividend obligations, which Strategy can meet by adjusting payouts, but at the cost of higher cash-flow pressure tied to its bitcoin-backed balance sheet.
"In a nutshell, Strategy's levered business model is under pressure, and this has increased the volatility for the BTC market as a whole," the note said. "Further, we think that Strategy — which historically has been a net buyer of BTC — will have a limited ability to accumulate more tokens at current share prices for both STRC and MSTR."
STRC edged up 0.8% to close at $95.42 on Thursday, but has remained below the $100 level since mid-May. The total notional amount of STRC stands at nearly $10.5 billion. MSTR gained 2.2% to finish the day at $129.37, though the stock remains down roughly 30% over the past month.
Bitcoin traded at around $62,300 on Friday, down 2% over the past 24 hours and roughly 50% below its all-time high of about $126,000 reached in October 2025, according to The Block's BTC price page.
Meanwhile, U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $3.05 million in net inflows on Thursday, ending a 13-day streak of negative flows, SoSoValue data shows. BlackRock's IBIT and Morgan Stanley's MSBT were the only bitcoin ETFs to post net inflows, drawing in $47.7 million and $9.9 million, respectively.
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Additionally, Grayscale said a longer-term shift toward more diversified corporate ownership of bitcoin — away from levered digital asset treasury balance sheets — would support market resilience over time.