Strategy CEO Defends 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC) Sale as Strategic Dividend Trade

Le Defends 7,000 BTC Sale

Strategy CEO Phong Le has defended the company's sale of roughly 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC) this summer, telling Bloomberg in an interview published Wednesday that the disposals were a financing decision rather than a directional bet on price. According to the company's Bitcoin ledger, Strategy sold 6,916 BTC in four tranches between late June and mid-August at a weighted-average price of about $62,200, then resumed purchases last week, adding 4,603 BTC at an average of $80,318 — a sequence critics on social media quickly branded a textbook “sell low, buy high” round trip. Le rejected that framing, saying each move was “the right trade” under the conditions prevailing at the time. The sale, he explained, funded dividends on STRC, the firm's variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, while the repurchase was financed by selling MSTR shares at a premium to the value of its coin holdings. “It’s the right trade at this point in time to sell MSTR at a premium to buy Bitcoin,” he said. The 7,000 BTC sold represents less than 1% of corporate holdings, which stand at 845,050 BTC — roughly $65.4 billion — after growing 25% to 30% this year, with an average acquisition cost near $75,400 per coin. For a firm long cast as the ultimate HODL proxy — a corporate-scale crypto whale whose treasury helped define the modern strategic Bitcoin reserve playbook — even a sub-1% disposal was always going to draw scrutiny. Le added that the buy-side discipline remains intact: Strategy would keep accumulating even if Bitcoin climbs to $90,000, $100,000 or $130,000, provided financing costs stay reasonable, consistent with our earlier coverage of the company’s $130K buying threshold.

From 'Never Sell' to Two-Way Book

The August repurchase was disclosed in an Aug. 31 regulatory filing: Strategy bought 4,603 BTC for $369.7 million in the week ending Aug. 30, paying an average of $80,318 per coin and financing the purchase with MSTR share sales. During the two-month buying pause that preceded it, the company rebuilt its balance sheet: total assets reached $72 billion — about $65 billion in Bitcoin and roughly $7 billion in dollar reserves — while net debt fell from approximately $7 billion to zero. Le argued the stronger footing made equity issuance cheaper, which is precisely why repurchasing Bitcoin at $80,318 made sense even after selling near $62,200. The mechanics matter. STRC slipped below its $100 stated value in June; because Strategy adjusts STRC's dividend to keep the shares near par, the decline made new preferred issuance less attractive and squeezed a key funding channel for Bitcoin purchases. That squeeze explains why the firm abandoned its famous “never sell” posture in May, pledging instead to remain a net buyer while reserving the option to sell. “A one-way accumulator isn’t really a full operating company,” Le said, positioning Strategy as a “two-way capital management company” that can buy and sell Bitcoin, equity and preferreds as financing conditions dictate — a posture closer to Bitcoin maximalism in conviction than to conventional treasury management, but executed like a trading desk. Skeptics remain: trader Scott Melker and others had flagged in 2025 a structural tendency for the company's purchases to balloon whenever MSTR traded at a high premium to its coin holdings — the very window when fundraising is easiest. Notably, the firm's corporate Bitcoin accumulation still lifted holdings roughly 30% year-to-date even after the summer sales, so the market will judge whether this two-way book earns the same patience at the next drawdown. As we noted in our recent piece on Bitcoin holding near $77K, the price backdrop has stabilized since the repurchase. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

$77,700 Ceiling Is the Line

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates Bitcoin's $77,693 resistance at 82/100, driven by the confluence of a low-volume node, the 0.114 Fibonacci retracement, the Ichimoku Tenkan and the daily pivot, while first support at $76,411 scores 79/100 on Fibo 0.214, EMA 20 and BB Middle confluence. Spot trades at $77,258, up 0.13% in 24 hours, with RSI at 65.45, a bearish MACD signal and a sideways trend. Derivatives positioning leans constructive: funding at 0.0039%, open interest near $15.57 billion and a long/short account ratio of 1.29 (56.3% long), against a Fear & Greed reading of 63 (Greed). A daily close above $77,693 opens the $79,914 resistance (82/100); losing $76,411 would invalidate the bullish structure.