Strategy is momentarily suspending its bitcoin purchasing activity. On Sunday, Michael Saylor announced that the company would not be adding to its bitcoin holdings this week, putting its regular purchase program on hold until after the release of its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
Saylor stated, 'No buys this week. Back to work next week.' This pause marks only the second time this year that Strategy, now the largest publicly traded bitcoin treasury company, has halted its weekly purchases, with the previous pause occurring between March 23 and March 29. Currently, Strategy holds 138,834 BTC less than 4% of the total bitcoin supply. The company's most recent purchase added 3,273 BTC at an average price of $77,906 per bitcoin.
As of Monday morning, BTC was trading near $80,100, representing a 20% increase over the past month. The pause may seem insignificant, but it comes ahead of Strategy's first-quarter results, with some Wall Street analysts anticipating a loss of $18.98 per share.
Strategy is expected to report first-quarter revenue of approximately $125 million, according to data from six analysts on Yahoo Finance, representing a 12.6% increase from $111.1 million in the same quarter last year. This would indicate an improvement from the previous year, when sales declined by 3.6%.
However, earnings are expected to be lower, with Yahoo Finance's average estimate showing a loss of $27.33 per share for the March quarter, while Zacks Research data points to an expected loss of $3.41 per share. Strategy is no longer viewed as a software company with a bitcoin position but rather as a bitcoin financing vehicle that also provides business intelligence software.
As a result, Tuesday's report may be judged more on the resilience of Saylor's capital-raising strategy and less on the company's true operating performance. One product that has drawn attention is STRC, a perpetual preferred share designed to trade near $100 while paying a variable monthly dividend, currently around 11.5% annualized. The pitch is yield backed by Strategy's balance sheet and bitcoin-heavy capital strategy, but there is concern that the product can start to look less like stable income and more like credit risk if market sentiment turns. Higher bitcoin prices support Strategy's valuation, enhancing its ability to raise capital, which in turn funds more bitcoin purchases.
However, when sentiment weakens, the same structure becomes more fragile. Saylor has stated that the buying will resume next week, but Tuesday's earnings will reveal how much confidence investors still have in the machinery that makes this possible.