Strategy Stops Buying Bitcoin and Builds a $3B Dollar Reserve

Strategy has not bought bitcoin since June 22 and has spent the weeks since building a dollar reserve of roughly $3 billion, up from about $2.55 billion a week earlier. Its last purchase was 520 BTC for about $35 million on that date, and its holdings have been unchanged at 843,775 BTC ever since. The company said the reserve is there to cover distributions on its preferred stock and interest on its debt, obligations that run to about $1.76 billion a year, giving it roughly 20.4 months of coverage at the current balance. The pause follows a fortnight in which the company sold bitcoin at the fastest pace since it dropped its never-sell stance. Bitcoin traded near $63,000 on Monday, down more than 1% since midnight UTC.

The Pause: Three Weeks Without a Purchase

For a company whose defining activity has been buying bitcoin every week it could, three weeks of no purchases is itself the disclosure. Holdings sat at 843,775 BTC against a cost basis of about $63.69 billion, an average purchase price of $75,476 per coin, which is well above where bitcoin has traded through the month. The 520 BTC bought on June 22 for about $35 million was already a token amount by the company's own standards. What replaced the buying was accumulation of dollars: the reserve moved from about $2.55 billion, its level on July 5, to about $3 billion by this week.

The Sales: 3,588 BTC for About $216 Million

The reserve was built partly out of bitcoin. On July 6 the company disclosed sales of 3,588 BTC for roughly $216 million at an average price of about $60,000, broken out as 1,363 BTC for about $80.8 million on June 30 and a further 2,225 BTC for $135.2 million. That was its largest sale since it abandoned the never-sell position, and it compared with just 32 BTC sold a month earlier. Proceeds were earmarked for preferred-stock distributions and to replenish the dollar reserve, and MSTR traded about 2% lower in the pre-market on the day. Separately, the $1.25 billion Bitcoin Monetization Program authorised in June remained fully available, meaning none of that capacity had been drawn.

The selling has not gone uncontested as a policy. On July 2, JPMorgan said Strategy's sales policy adds "two-way risk" to crypto markets, the argument being that a holder of this size that both buys and sells removes the one-directional bid the market had learned to expect from it. The average sale price of about $60,000 is itself a product of the drawdown that produced June's low, and it sits roughly $15,000 below the average price the company paid, so the disposals realized a loss against the cost of the stack.

The Ratio: mNAV Back Above 1.0

Behind both the sales and the pause sits mNAV, the ratio of a company's market value to the bitcoin it holds. It stood at about 1.02x this week, a slight premium, after falling below 1.0 on June 27. That threshold matters because below it the market values the company at less than its coins, which removes the logic of issuing new shares to buy more bitcoin: dilution at a discount destroys value for existing holders rather than creating it. Above 1.0, the machine works; at 1.02x it barely does. The preferred stock reflects the same pressure, with STRC trading around $87, down 0.5%, against a stated value of $100.

What Is Unresolved: Coverage Bought at the Cost of Accumulation

Twenty months of coverage is a real cushion, but it was assembled by selling the asset the company exists to hold and by not replacing it. Nothing disclosed so far says what would end the pause: no mNAV level, no price, no date. Traders were watching resistance flagged at $66,000 and $68,900 and support at $58,000, the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement level, and the company's position sits inside that range rather than above it. Until buying resumes, the question is whether a treasury that has stopped accumulating is still the same instrument its shareholders bought.