Strategy has decided to take a temporary break from purchasing bitcoin. On Sunday, Michael Saylor announced that the company would not be adding to its bitcoin holdings this week, choosing to pause its regular purchase program until after the release of its first-quarter earnings. Saylor stated, 'No buys this week.
Back to work next week,' indicating a brief hiatus. This pause marks only the second instance this year for Strategy, a company that has transformed into the largest publicly traded bitcoin treasury and a closely watched proxy for institutional bitcoin exposure.
The last time the company skipped a weekly purchase was during the week of March 23 to March 29. Currently, Strategy holds 818,334 BTC, which is nearly 3.9% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply. Its most recent purchase added 3,273 BTC at an average price of $77,906 per bitcoin.
As of Monday's Asian morning hours, BTC was trading near $80,100, representing a 20% increase over the past month. Although the pause may seem insignificant, it comes ahead of Strategy's first-quarter results, with some Wall Street analysts anticipating a loss of $18.98 per share. According to data from six analysts on Yahoo Finance, Strategy is expected to report first-quarter revenue of approximately $125 million, marking 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%, suggesting that the underlying software business is still growing, albeit with the company's identity now heavily tied to bitcoin. However, earnings are expected to be lower, with an average estimate of a loss of $27.33 per share for the March quarter, according to Yahoo Finance, and $3.41 per share, according to Zacks Research data. 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 gaining attention is STRC, a perpetual preferred share designed to trade near $100 while offering a variable monthly dividend, currently around 11.5% annualized. The pitch is that the yield is backed by Strategy's balance sheet and bitcoin-heavy capital strategy, but there is a concern that the product may start to resemble credit risk rather than stable income if market sentiment shifts. 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 buying will resume next week, but Tuesday's earnings will reveal how much confidence investors still have in the machinery that enables this process. Notably, the company raised $82 million through the sale of common stock, according to Monday's 8-K filing, although no corresponding bitcoin purchases were disclosed.