Strategy buys 535 BTC for $43M as holdings top 818,869

Strategy bought 535 bitcoin for roughly $43 million last week at an average price of $80,340 per coin, according to a Monday X post from executive chairman Michael Saylor. The purchase lifts the company's total holdings to 818,869 BTC, acquired for $61.86 billion at an average cost basis of $75,540.

With BTC trading above $81,000, the corporate treasury sits back in profit on a per-coin basis. MSTR added more than 1% in pre-market trading on the announcement.

Why it matters

The purchase lands days after Strategy's first-quarter earnings call, where the company said it was prepared to sell bitcoin to repay convertible debt or fund dividend obligations — provided the move remained accretive on a BTC-per-share basis. Buying instead of selling at a higher average price ($80,340 vs the $75,540 cost basis) is the louder signal: management is choosing dilution of preferred shares over touching the BTC stack.

The $42.9 million used to fund the purchase came from sales of the company's preferred stock, per a May 11 SEC filing. That preserves the option for the convertible-note playbook Saylor signalled last quarter while still expanding the BTC count — the path of least resistance for per-share accretion, and the one least likely to spook long-only MSTR holders.

Market impact

Strategy previously sold 704 BTC in December 2022 to realise tax losses, then rebought 810 BTC two days later — a tax-harvesting template Saylor publicly resurrected on the Q1 call. The May purchase confirms that path is operational, not rhetorical: the company can flex between selling and accumulating without ever shrinking the headline BTC figure for long.

BTC funds took in $700 million over the same window as institutional desks re-upped exposure, and MSTR's pre-market bid signals equity investors are reading this as accretionary. Watch the next preferred-stock issuance — if the cadence continues, the per-share BTC count will keep compounding even if BTC trades sideways.