“You Do Not Sell Your Bitcoin”: Saylor’s Strategy Offloads $216 Million in BTC

It’s a sentence that will haunt Michael Saylor for a long time to come: “You do not sell your Bitcoin.” As recently as October 2025, the Executive Chairman of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) issued this rallying cry, having preached it like a mantra for years. Saylor is arguably the world’s loudest Bitcoin evangelist: since 2020, he has transformed the former software company into a gigantic Bitcoin-buying machine that raised ever more capital through stock and bond issuances to accumulate ever more BTC — selling was never part of the plan, or so the credo went. As late as Sunday, Saylor posted his usual Bitcoin chart on X with the slogan “Bitcoin is digital energy” — posts that in the past typically heralded fresh purchases.

This time, things turned out differently: Strategy sold 3,588 Bitcoin worth around $216 million last week, according to an 8-K filing published Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is by far the largest sale in the company’s history and only its third ever. For comparison: at the end of 2022, Strategy sold a one-off 704 BTC for tax reasons (and bought them back shortly afterwards), followed by a mini-sale of 32 BTC worth around $2.5 million in late May 2026. The current deal is nearly a hundred times that size.

According to the filing, the sale took place in two tranches: between June 29 and 30, Strategy offloaded 1,363 BTC at an average price of $59,256 ($80.8 million), followed by another 2,225 BTC at an average of $60,773 between July 1 and 5 ($135.2 million). The bitter truth: Strategy acquired its Bitcoin at an average price of $74,476 — meaning it sold at a discount of roughly 20 percent to its own cost basis.

Even 32 BTC Triggered a Tremor

Just how sensitively the market reacts to Saylor’s moves was already evident with the comparatively tiny sale in May: even though only 32 BTC were involved, the news contributed to a price slump — Bitcoin slid from nearly $74,000 to briefly below $58,000 in the weeks that followed. The reason for the nervousness: even after the latest sale, Strategy still holds 843,775 BTC worth around $52.3 billion — more than 4 percent of all Bitcoin that will ever exist. For years, the company was the largest and most reliable source of demand in the market; in 2026 alone, it has bought around 175,000 BTC for roughly $14 billion. Any signal that the perpetual buyer could turn into a seller stokes fears of a chain reaction.

Accordingly, excitement ran high last week when on-chain analysts spotted a transaction of 491 BTC attributed to Strategy. Speculation boiled over — and reality exceeded it: the company had in fact sold more than seven times that amount. The reaction on Monday: Bitcoin dropped around 2 percent after the filing, while MSTR shares also traded down nearly 2 percent in pre-market trading.

Why Strategy Is Selling — and How Saylor Justifies It

The backdrop is the ongoing crypto bear market: since its all-time high last fall, Bitcoin has lost more than 40 percent and is trading well below Strategy’s average purchase price. The company’s total holdings, for which it spent around $63.7 billion including fees, currently carry about $11.4 billion in paper losses. In the second quarter alone, Strategy booked an $8.32 billion loss on its digital assets — almost entirely unrealized. MSTR stock has lost nearly 74 percent over the past year.

At the same time, ongoing obligations are weighing on the company: Strategy has raised billions in capital markets through preferred stocks such as STRC (“Stretch”), STRF, STRK, STRD, and STRE — and must pay out generous dividends in return, currently 12 percent per year in the case of STRC. It is precisely this flagship instrument that has come under massive pressure recently: STRC, which is supposed to trade stably at $100 and served as the main funding channel for Bitcoin purchases this year, temporarily crashed to a low of $71.25 and has only recovered to just under $88. Since mid-May, Strategy has effectively been unable to raise fresh money through it for BTC purchases.

Saylor’s argument: the sale is not an exit, but financing. The $216 million went toward paying the quarterly dividends on the “Digital Credit” securities as well as the June dividend on STRC and replenishing the dollar reserve, he confirmed on X. The basis is the “Digital Credit Capital Framework” unveiled in late June: under a board-approved policy, Strategy commits to holding a dollar reserve covering at least 12 months of dividend and interest payments — it was boosted from $1.4 billion to $2.55 billion within a week. The package also includes a BTC Monetization Program allowing Bitcoin sales of up to $1.25 billion (this capacity remains fully available, according to the filing), a $1 billion repurchase program for the preferred stocks, and a separate common stock buyback program of the same size. The STRC dividend will now be reviewed monthly and will no longer automatically increase when the security trades below par.

A Dam Break With Signal Effect

For the crypto industry, the move is nonetheless a dam break. For Strategy, Bitcoin is no longer an untouchable reserve asset, but a source of liquidity like any other. JPMorgan analysts warn that the formalized sale policy introduces “avoidable two-way risk” into the market: Strategy can now show up as either a buyer or a seller at any time. Bernstein disagrees, arguing that the company’s balance sheet makes forced selling unlikely. Analyst houses are split as well: Benchmark recently reiterated its Buy rating with a price target of $570, while TD Cowen slashed its target from $400 to $260. Still, the stock market initially rewarded the new framework, with MSTR shares gaining a good 21 percent last week.

And Strategy is far from an isolated case: according to Bitcoin Treasuries, 197 publicly listed companies now pursue a Bitcoin treasury model — behind Strategy come Tether-backed Twenty One (43,514 BTC), Japan’s Metaplanet (43,000 BTC), miner MARA (36,303 BTC), and the Adam Back and Cantor Fitzgerald-backed Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (30,021 BTC). Many of these imitators are wobbling in the bear market. The man who once vowed never to sell has now set the precedent himself. The question that will occupy the market in the coming weeks: was it a one-off act of self-liberation — or the beginning of the end of the greatest Bitcoin trade of all time?