Author: Claude, Shenchao TechFlow
Shenchao Digest: The pause in accumulation by Strategy, the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder, is nearing its end. CEO Phong Le explicitly stated in a FOX Business interview that the company will resume buying Bitcoin within this year. Over the past seven months, the company has purchased approximately 175,000 BTC and sold about 7,000, making net purchases 25 times net sales. For the market, this means the largest public holder will resume providing buyer support, serving as a micro-indicator for observing institutional confidence.
On August 10th Eastern Time, Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR, formerly MicroStrategy) CEO Phong Le gave a timeline for the resumption of accumulation in an interview with FOX Business. According to a Cointelegraph report on August 12th, Le clearly stated the company plans to resume Bitcoin accumulation "within this year," ending this period of selling and observation that has lasted over two months since May.
"We will resume buying more Bitcoin within this year," Le said in the interview.
Bought 175,000, Sold ~7,000 This Year; Net Buying 25x Net Selling
First, let's look at the numbers. The figures Le provided in the interview are: since the beginning of this year, Strategy has purchased approximately 175,000 Bitcoin and sold about 7,000, with buying volume being about "25 times" the selling volume. In other words, seen from an annual perspective, this pause in accumulation that sparked market discussion still represents a company with staggering net purchases.
"Our buying volume is roughly 25 times our selling volume," Le said. He added that the company has surpassed previous holders ahead of it to become the world's largest institutional Bitcoin holder.
According to the latest disclosure, Strategy holds 840,447 Bitcoin, accounting for about 4% of the global circulating supply. With an average cost of $75,482 per Bitcoin, the total investment in these holdings is approximately $64 billion. At the current price of around $64,000, the market value is about $54 billion, resulting in an unrealized loss of roughly $10 billion.
Where the Proceeds Went: Preferred Stock Dividends, Stock Buybacks, and USD Reserves
Since the company remained a net buyer this year, why did it start selling continuously from May? The answer lies in its capital structure.
Le explained during the Q2 earnings call on August 3rd that the proceeds from sales had three destinations: preferred stock dividends, stock buybacks, and USD reserves. At the end of June, the company's board approved the "Digital Credit Capital Framework," authorizing the liquidation of up to $1.25 billion worth of Bitcoin for dividends, interest payments, and buybacks. The scale of this obligation is significant, with annual dividend and interest payments for preferred stock alone totaling about $1.76 billion, including a high annual dividend rate of 12% for the STRC preferred shares.
"We sell Bitcoin when it's beneficial to the company, and we've started doing that," Le said on the call. "You can expect we will probably continue to do that going forward."
For Le, the most important lesson from the 2026 bear market is: you need dollars on the books. He stated frankly on the call: "We originally thought liquid Bitcoin was important, but Mike [Executive Chairman Michael Saylor] mentioned earlier that investors holding these preferred shares view Bitcoin differently from how they view the U.S. dollar." He noted that over the past few months, the company's USD reserves have grown from about $800 million to approximately $4.7 billion, sufficient to cover dividend and interest obligations for over two years.
The "Never Sell" Mantra Broken, Market and Wall Street Reaction
The reason the pause in accumulation caused such a stir is rooted in Strategy breaking its own long-maintained "never sell" mantra.
Starting in August 2020, Saylor transformed the company into a Bitcoin treasury, with the entire investment logic built on "never selling," and the market accordingly awarded MSTR a premium. In late May, the company sold 32 Bitcoin for $2.5 million to pay preferred stock dividends, marking the first sale since December 2022. On the day of disclosure, Bitcoin briefly fell to a two-month low, MSTR stock dropped about 5% intraday, and J.P. Morgan subsequently downgraded its rating from "Overweight" to "Cautious," warning of the company's approximately $1.7 billion annual preferred dividend pressure.
The selling didn't stop thereafter: it sold 3,588 Bitcoin from late June to early July for $216 million; 1,638 Bitcoin in mid-July; and another 1,690 Bitcoin in early August for $108.6 million. As of this writing, the company has gone seven consecutive weeks without a new purchase, the longest hiatus since 2024. Furthermore, the amount sold so far in 2026 exceeds the total sold in any year since the company began buying in 2020.
Facing skepticism, Saylor made a distinction on August 3rd: "When I say 'never sell your Bitcoin,' I'm speaking as one saver to another saver." He stated he has never sold his personal Bitcoin holdings and emphasized that Strategy has disclosed since 2020 that the company may buy or sell Bitcoin for capital management purposes.
The market wasn't convinced. MSTR stock is down about 38% year-to-date, while Bitcoin has fallen about 25% over the same period. This leveraged bet has amplified losses in the bear market. On August 11th, MSTR closed at $96.09, down about 80% from its November 2024 all-time high.
Buyer Support and a Micro-Indicator of Institutional Confidence
So, what does Le's statement mean?
Most directly, the biggest source of institutional buy-side pressure in the Bitcoin market is coming back. In the first half of this year, Strategy purchased 175,000 Bitcoin using proceeds from equity offerings and debt financing, making it one of the most significant sources of demand during that period. If accumulation resumes in the second half, the company will once again become a supporting force beneath the price.
On a deeper level, this serves as a micro-indicator for observing the recovery of institutional confidence. During the pause, the company did three things: sold a small portion of its holdings, replenished its USD reserves, and maintained preferred stock dividend payments. Essentially, it was a public company preserving its credit in a bear market. Le's choice to announce the "resumption of buying within this year" at a point when USD reserves are sufficient and dividends are covered for two years suggests the company believes the most intense liquidity phase has passed.
Le was straightforward about this positioning. He called Strategy "the J.P. Morgan of the crypto economy" in the interview: "Whether we sell 1,000 out of 840,000 Bitcoin is irrelevant to the core issue for me." He also told CoinDesk that over the past year, Bitcoin rose about 33%, while MSTR rose about 42%, and the company is pursuing a longer-term goal: to continuously increase the amount of Bitcoin represented by each share of MSTR.
For Bitcoin holders, the good news is that the mantra is back; but this time, "never sell" has evolved into "sell when advantageous, buy when the market needs it." The lessons a bear market teaches a public company don't disappear with one statement.
