Michael Saylor said he has never sold any of his personal Bitcoin, separating his own holdings from Strategy Inc.’s corporate treasury after the company sold 1,638 BTC for about $104.7 million last week.
“Not one satoshi,” Saylor wrote on X on Aug. 3, responding to scrutiny around Strategy’s first meaningful reduction in Bitcoin holdings after nearly two years of frequent purchases. The sale reduced the company’s reserve to 842,138 BTC, according to Strategy’s filing.
Saylor’s message draws a clear boundary between an executive’s personal exposure to Bitcoin and the financing decisions of a public company that has built its business identity around maintaining one of the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin positions. Strategy’s sale was used to support its capital structure, rather than representing a stated retreat from Bitcoin as a long-term treasury asset.
Strategy uses Bitcoin sale proceeds for preferred-stock obligations
Strategy said proceeds from the latest Bitcoin sales were used to pay distributions on preferred shares and repurchase STRC, one of its perpetual preferred-stock offerings. The company has used several forms of preferred equity to raise capital for Bitcoin purchases, creating obligations that must be met regardless of short-term moves in Bitcoin’s price.
The financing structure has become increasingly relevant as Strategy’s common shares have weakened. The stock traded near $94.78 at publication time, down about 40% year to date and roughly 70% over the previous 12 months, after peaking above $400 in July 2025.
That decline has reduced the premium that Strategy’s common stock once commanded relative to the value of its Bitcoin holdings. A higher stock-market valuation had previously given the company a relatively efficient route to raise money through equity-linked securities and deploy the proceeds into Bitcoin. A lower share price makes that model more complicated, particularly when preferred securities need support in the secondary market.
STRC, which carries a variable 12% yield, recently traded around $86.89, below its $100 par value. Strategy’s repurchases would reduce the amount of STRC outstanding and could help lift the security toward its issue price, though they also require the company to direct capital away from Bitcoin accumulation.
TD Cowen said in a note to clients that the activity was consistent with management’s objective of moving STRC closer to par. The firm’s preferred-stock strategy gives buyers an income-oriented product tied indirectly to Strategy’s Bitcoin-centered balance sheet, but the arrangement also places recurring distribution costs ahead of further treasury expansion.
A break from almost continuous Bitcoin accumulation
The latest transaction follows an earlier sale of 32 BTC at the end of May, which marked the first net reduction in Strategy’s holdings that was not connected to tax-loss harvesting. Until then, the company had spent roughly two years expanding its reserve at a near-weekly pace.
Strategy then paused acquisitions for five weeks ending July 26. Over that period, its U.S. dollar reserve rose by $525 million to $3.75 billion, according to the company. The larger cash position gave Strategy more flexibility to meet preferred-share obligations, conduct repurchases, or resume Bitcoin purchases if management decides conditions support further accumulation.
The timing of the sales suggests Strategy is managing several demands at once: preserving liquidity, supporting preferred securities, and maintaining the balance-sheet flexibility needed for a Bitcoin treasury strategy at a much larger scale than in previous cycles.
The company’s 842,138 BTC reserve remains enormous even after the sale. At the same time, the recent transactions show that a large treasury does not function as an untouchable reserve when a company has issued income-bearing securities and must address market pricing in those instruments.
Personal holdings and corporate treasury take different paths
Saylor’s personal statement does not change the company’s filing or its use of Bitcoin-sale proceeds, but it addresses a likely source of confusion among followers of Strategy’s long-running Bitcoin strategy. Saylor has frequently presented Bitcoin as a long-term store of value, while Strategy’s public filings show that its holdings can be used within a broader corporate financing system.
A personal holder can choose whether to sell based largely on individual conviction and liquidity needs. Strategy’s decisions involve its board, shareholders, preferred-stock holders, cash reserves, public-market valuation and contractual distribution requirements. Those pressures can lead to asset sales even when management continues to favor Bitcoin over the long run.
The distinction has become sharper as Strategy’s preferred stock trades below par. A company can hold a substantial Bitcoin reserve while also deciding that repurchasing discounted preferred shares offers a more immediate financial benefit than adding to that reserve.
Security concerns remain separate from Strategy’s transactions
TD Cowen’s note also referenced a recent Coldcard-related security incident involving Bitcoin losses linked to an older software vulnerability. The incident has renewed attention on the risks attached to seed generation, the process through which a wallet creates the secret recovery phrase that controls funds.
The reported vulnerability affected a March 2021 software version whose random-number generator could produce compromised seed phrases. Accounts generated with an exposed seed could remain vulnerable even after the wallet’s software is updated, since the weakness lies in the original phrase rather than the device’s current firmware.
The security episode is separate from Strategy’s corporate Bitcoin sale, but it arrives during a period when Bitcoin holders are paying closer attention to custody practices as well as market risk. Strategy keeps its treasury under a corporate custody framework, while individual holders using hardware wallets face a different set of operational risks.
For Strategy, the immediate issue is less about whether Bitcoin remains part of its strategy than about how much of its reserve can be committed to maintaining the financing structure built around that strategy. Saylor’s personal pledge to keep holding Bitcoin may reinforce his longstanding conviction, while the company’s latest filing shows that Strategy’s balance sheet is now being managed with more competing priorities than simple accumulation.
Explore corporate Bitcoin dynamics and Saylor-style conviction in this Bitcoin strategic reserve guide for deeper context on treasury decisions.
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