Strategy CEO Outlines Criteria for Bitcoin Sales

Phong Le, the CEO of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy, outlined conditions during an interview on Friday, under which the company would sell some of its Bitcoin holdings. 

The company will sell Bitcoin to pay the dividend on its Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC), a corporate credit instrument that pays an 11.5% dividend to holders, and to defer or offset taxes, Le told CNBC. He added:

“I believe in math over ideology, and at the point where selling Bitcoin versus selling equity to pay a dividend is better for our Bitcoin per share, and for our common shareholders, we will do it.”

Le added that the company would only sell BTC to pay for the yield owed to holders of its credit instruments if the sales are “accretive” to Strategy’s shareholders, meaning the company increases the BTC per share metric.

The comments came after Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor said that the company might sell portions of its BTC periodically, stoking fears among BTC investors about the potential impacts of Strategy’s sales on Bitcoin’s market price. 

Related: Samson Mow defends Strategy selling portions of its Bitcoin treasury

Saylor says Strategy may sell BTC, but Le says it won’t impact asset prices significantly

“We’ll probably sell some Bitcoin to fund a dividend, just to inoculate the market, just to send the message that we did it,” Saylor said in an earnings call on Tuesday.

Saylor added that if BTC appreciates by more than 2.3% annually, Strategy could fund its dividend payments “forever” without selling Strategy’s stock and diluting shareholders.

The annual yield on Strategy's BTC treasury. Source: Strategy

“We could stop selling MSTR common stock right now,” Saylor said, adding, “We can fund the dividends with Bitcoin sales.”

The company holds 818,334 BTC, valued at more than $66 billion at the time of this writing, making it the largest publicly traded BTC treasury company, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries. 

Treasury companies offloading their BTC may create selling pressure that negatively impacts Bitcoin’s price; however, Le said that BTC’s daily trading volume of about $60 billion is enough to absorb the more than $1 billion in annual dividends that Strategy owes.

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