Strategy Authorizes Sale of Up to $1.25B in Bitcoin, Ending Never-Sell Vow

Bitcoin News

Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin (BTC), authorized its board to monetize up to $1.25 billion of its coins, a sharp reversal of Michael Saylor's long-standing pledge to never sell. The company's investor-relations disclosure on June 29 unveiled a Digital Credit Capital Framework, with a BTC Monetization Program at its core. The board can now liquidate Bitcoin to rebuild dollar reserves, cover preferred dividends, or fund buybacks when more accretive than issuing equity. Any sale requires board approval and carries no obligation, but the option alone punctures the religious never-sell narrative that long defined the firm's Bitcoin treasury model.

The pivot follows a collapse in Strategy's enterprise mNAV, the multiple measuring its total capital structure against the market value of its coins, which slipped below 1 for the first time. Unlike a simple market-cap-to-BTC ratio, enterprise mNAV folds in outstanding debt, perpetual preferreds and cash. A reading under 1 signals the market now values the entire enterprise below its underlying Bitcoin, shattering the credit-premium formula that let Strategy issue richly priced shares and stack coins at little cost. The damage spread to its STRC perpetual preferred, which sank to a record low near $71, far beneath its $100 par value.

To quell the panic, Strategy built a USD Reserve of roughly $2.55 billion as of June 28, raised through at-the-market common-stock sales. The board ring-fenced the cash exclusively for preferred dividends and debt interest, an obligation running near $1.76 billion annually. Effective July 1, the firm lifted the STRC dividend by 50 basis points to 12.0%, targeting a trading range close to its $100 par. Management said the reserve alone covers about 17.4 months of payments; layering in the $1.25 billion monetization authorization pushes total liquidity to roughly $3.8 billion, or about 25.9 months of coverage, a buffer designed to erase default fears.

The framework also authorized two separate $1 billion buyback programs, $2 billion in aggregate capacity. The first targets outstanding Digital Credit Securities, including the STRC, STRF, STRD and STRK preferreds, prioritizing STRC when repurchases are accretive. The second covers MSTR Class A common stock. Neither program draws on the dedicated dollar reserve, and any funding tied to coin sales must route through the BTC Monetization Program. Executives framed the shift as an evolution from one-way capital issuance toward active capital management, issuing when capital is attractive and buying back when instruments trade at a discount. The buybacks carry no fixed maturity or obligation.

Strategy paused Bitcoin purchases through the June 22 to 28 window, holding steady at 847,363 BTC acquired at an average cost near $75,651, a roughly $64.1 billion position. With Bitcoin trading around $60,000, that stack sat on an unrealized loss of about $13 billion. Notably, the company raised roughly $1.15 billion via its MSTR at-the-market program during the week but did not deploy it into coins, instead funneling the proceeds into the dollar reserve. Saylor signaled the pivot on Sunday by posting an acquisition-tracker chart captioned “We're gonna need more charts,” which the market read as a teaser for the framework rather than fresh buying.

Initial market reaction skewed positive. MSTR climbed about 6% in pre-market trading, while Bitcoin briefly reclaimed the $60,000 mark before fading. The battered STRC preferred rebounded from its $71 low into the $80 range as investors digested the higher dividend and liquidity backstop. Derivatives desks read the explicit $1.25 billion sale ceiling as a near-term overhang for spot supply, yet judged the broader package as structurally credit-positive. Skeptics countered that issuing common stock below 1x mNAV last week, then opening the door to coin sales amid a deepening bear market, marks a costly retreat from the firm's vaunted flywheel.

On COINOTAG's proprietary data, Bitcoin trades at $58,606, down 2.98% on the day, with the record high a distant reference. COINOTAG's 42-indicator composite scoring engine rates the $58,120 support at 84/100 (strong), anchored by the confluence of the Bollinger Band lower bound, Fibonacci 0.000 and a swing low; the next major shelf sits far lower at $51,387 (50/100). Overhead, the engine scores $60,930 resistance at 69/100, driven by the prior-day high and an ATR upper band. RSI at 30.53 verges on oversold and MACD stays bearish. Derivatives show a crowded 2.98 long/short ratio (74.9% long) against $12.1 billion open interest and a Fear & Greed reading of 15 (extreme fear), while altcoins bleed under elevated BTC dominance. A break of the $58,120 floor risks a long squeeze toward $51,387; reclaiming $60,930 would invalidate the bearish thesis.