Strategy Board Clears Sale of Up to $1.25B in BTC as mNAV Breaks 1.0

Strategy's board has authorized a "Bitcoin Monetization Program" permitting the sale of up to $1.25 billion of the company's bitcoin, the firm disclosed on Monday. The authorization came two days after Strategy's mNAV, the ratio of a company's market value to the bitcoin it holds, fell below 1.0 to 0.99 on June 27, according to Cryptonews. That threshold governs the model Strategy built its balance sheet on: above 1.0, selling stock to buy bitcoin leaves each existing share backed by more bitcoin than before; below it, the same trade does the opposite. Strategy holds roughly 843,706 to 847,000 BTC and about $2.55 billion in cash. MSTR traded at $82.31, down 3.5%, with bitcoin near $60,175.

The Mechanics: Why 1.0 Is the Line That Matters

Strategy financed years of bitcoin purchases by issuing equity at a premium to the value of the bitcoin already on its books. While mNAV sits above 1.0, a dollar of stock sold buys more than a dollar of bitcoin, so the dilution pays for itself and bitcoin per share rises even as the share count does. Below 1.0 the arithmetic inverts. Shares issued at a discount to the underlying holdings buy less bitcoin per share than they dilute away, and each issuance moves value from existing holders to new ones. The flywheel does not merely slow at that point; it turns against the shareholders it was built to serve.

The Obligations: More Than $700 Million a Year Across Three Preferreds

With equity issuance closed off as a funding route, the commitments the flywheel used to cover fall to the balance sheet. Strategy's preferred stack carries dividends of more than $700 million a year across three series: STRK at 8%, STRF at 10% and STRD at 10%, according to Cryptonews. Against that sits about $2.55 billion in cash, a buffer measured in years rather than months, but one that draws down on a fixed schedule while no new capital arrives to replace it. Selling bitcoin is the lever that remains. Set against a position of more than 843,000 BTC, the $1.25 billion authorization is a small fraction of the holdings rather than a wind-down, and the disclosure did not commit the company to using all of it.

The Precedent: 32 BTC in May, No Purchases in the Final Week of June

Monday's program was not the first crack in the accumulation record. Strategy disclosed in a June 1 filing that it had sold 32 BTC for about $2.5 million in late May, its first sale since 2022, CoinDesk reported. The amount was immaterial next to the holding, but the direction was new after four years in which the company had only bought. Strategy also bought no bitcoin at all in the final week of June, according to Cryptonews. Read together, the May disposal, the June pause and the board's authorization describe a company shifting from accumulating bitcoin to managing what it already owns.

The Divergence: Treasury Companies Are No Longer Moving as One

Strategy is the largest of the digital asset treasury companies but no longer a proxy for the group, which spent the same week moving in opposite directions:

• BitMine added 27,084 ETH, about $43 million, to reach 5.7 million ETH, roughly 4.7% of supply.
• SharpLink added 39,196 ETH, about $62.43 million, taking its holdings above 202,000 ETH.
• FG Nexus kept selling, with cumulative realized losses above $86.8 million.
• Solmate was down 78% year to date on about 2 million SOL, amid shareholder litigation.

All four run the same basic structure in the same market, and the spread between them is wide. What the mNAV break establishes is that the premium is not a permanent feature of that structure, and that a treasury company trading below the value of its own coins has no cheap way back above it. The open questions are whether Strategy sells against the authorization or leaves it unused, how the preferred dividends are met if it does not, and whether the companies still buying can hold a premium their largest peer has lost.