Strategy Bitcoin Purchase Lifts Treasury to 847,666 BTC

A small buy that says a lot

Michael Saylor teased the purchase on a Sunday with a two-word social post, "Even more orange." The filing that followed on Monday showed a modest acquisition. Between September 21 and September 27, Strategy bought 1,665 bitcoin for about $142.7 million. That raised its treasury to 847,666 BTC.3 The company paid an average of $85,681 per coin. Including fees and expenses, its total cost basis now stands at roughly $63.95 billion, or $75,437 per bitcoin.1 The holding is more than 4% of bitcoin's 21 million coin supply cap.10

The bitcoin count drew the headlines, but the funding is the more useful part of the story. Strategy sold 1,469,165 Class A common shares through its at-the-market program and raised $246.2 million in net proceeds. It sent $142.7 million of that to bitcoin and $103.5 million to buying back its STRC variable-rate preferred stock.2 It also took another $48.1 million from its USD Cash balance for the STRC buyback. In total, it repurchased about 1.53 million STRC shares for $151.7 million.6 For the week, Strategy spent more retiring its own preferred stock than buying bitcoin.8

The reports on this filing agree on the numbers and differ mainly on emphasis. Some outlets presented it as a routine addition to the world's largest corporate bitcoin treasury. Others, more convincingly, argued that bitcoin buying and capital-structure management have become one operation at Strategy.9 One outlet even published a correction after an earlier version mixed up which share of the stock proceeds went to bitcoin and which went to the buyback.10 That mistake reflects how complicated the company's disclosures have become.

The context: a model under strain

The purchase only makes sense against Strategy's 2026. The company's core idea is mNAV, the ratio of its market value to the value of the bitcoin it holds. When the stock trades well above its bitcoin backing, selling new shares to buy coins increases the bitcoin behind each share. When the ratio falls to 1.0 or below, the same move dilutes shareholders.11

The ratio did fall. Strategy's mNAV peaked at 3.89x in November 2024 and dropped below 1 as bitcoin sold off in 2026.15 Bitcoin itself fell from about $126,200 in October 2025 to roughly $63,400 by late July 2026, a drop of nearly half. Around half of public bitcoin treasury companies traded below 1.0x mNAV during that period.18 Samara Asset Group's analysis says Strategy's enterprise-value mNAV went below 1.0 in June 2026, when bitcoin was near $60,000.13

Strategy's response broke with its own history. In May, CEO Phong Le said the company would sell bitcoin when that benefited the business. By mid-August it had sold 6,948 BTC for about $432.5 million to pay preferred dividends and fund STRC buybacks.15 Others sold too. MARA sold 15,133 BTC in March to repurchase convertible notes, and Riot sold 3,778 BTC in the first quarter while shifting toward AI data-center work.11

The main pressure point was STRC. When the preferred traded below its $100 par value in June, analysts described it as a structural crack. The longer it stayed below par, the more likely Strategy would have to choose between issuing common stock and selling bitcoin to keep paying the dividend.15 Read this way, the late-September buyback is not a side project. It is the company's attempt to repair the funding channel its bitcoin buying depends on.

The measurement fight

Different methods put Strategy at a discount or a premium, and much of the current debate comes down to which yardstick you use. In July, Strategy changed its investor metrics. It introduced "net Bitcoin per share," which subtracts preferred stock and out-of-the-money convertible debt before dividing the bitcoin among common shares, and it redefined mNAV to match.15 On the older basic measure, mNAV hit 0.58 on June 26, recovered to about 0.97 by September 21, and was 0.87 in October. Strategy's own dashboard showed 1.12x on the same day.15

Third-party trackers disagree as well. One put Strategy's fully diluted mNAV at 1.19x as of October 30. On a gross basis it estimated 0.97x, and it calculated that senior debt and preferred stock claim about 257,672 of the company's bitcoin.17 Samara's analysis states the problem directly: with different methods, the same company can look like it trades at a discount or a premium.13 In this author's view, the gap between those numbers is the real risk indicator. The more claims sit ahead of common shareholders, the more a small change in bitcoin's price moves what common shareholders actually own.

What happened next

The record holding did not lead to a new buying spree. After the September purchase, weekly bitcoin buys shrank to $29 million, $21.5 million and $22.1 million in the following weeks. Holdings stood at 848,517 BTC as of the October filings.15 The most recent disclosed buy was 267 BTC for about $22.1 million, at an average of roughly $82,900.19 Meanwhile, STRC buybacks were reported at close to $200 million a week.19 USD Cash fell from $1.44 billion in early September to $447.3 million by October 18, mostly spent on those buybacks.15

The rest of the sector looks similar. Glassnode data shows treasury companies collectively back in profit, with bitcoin closing above their roughly $80,000 average cost every day since September 18. Even so, accumulation has stayed muted. Metaplanet chose a $122.4 million stock buyback over new bitcoin purchases.14 The median treasury-company mNAV was 1.22x in October, but 26 of 56 tracked firms traded below the value of their bitcoin.16

The next test comes from an index provider, not a regulator. On October 15, MSCI finalized a rule that makes "non-operating companies" whose balance sheets are dominated by one asset ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes, effective at the close on November 30. MSCI will publish the list of affected companies on November 11. Index-tracking funds held about 3.1% of Strategy's basic shares in early September.15 Strategy also carries about $1.7 billion a year in interest and preferred dividends.20 Its USD Reserve of about $5 billion, set aside for those payments, gives it room to operate but not unlimited time.5

ETFs are taking the simpler route

Spot bitcoin ETFs offer a clear comparison. US funds took in about $440.7 million over four sessions in the last week of October. Daily inflows went from $110.34 million on Monday to $175.99 million on Tuesday and $137.33 million on Wednesday, then slowed to $17.07 million on Thursday.32 BlackRock's IBIT accounted for most of that demand. On Monday it took the entire inflow, and on Wednesday it took almost all of it.31 The week before, ETFs ended a two-week outflow streak with about $301 million, even after roughly $774 million left on Thursday and Friday. October as a whole was still about $314 million negative at that point.34 Since January 2024, the funds have gathered $57.6 billion in net inflows.37

One caution from the data: DWF Labs found that ETF flows track bitcoin's past five days of returns far more closely than its next five.33 The firm also found net outflows in seven of eight sell-offs of 15% or more.34 ETF buyers tend to follow price moves rather than buy dips. Strategy's pitch has always been that it is the committed buyer. In 2026 that pitch rests on a funding structure that weakens exactly when prices fall.

Washington stalls, agencies step in

Regulation is not helping much in the short term. On September 15, the Senate rejected cloture on the CLARITY Act market-structure bill 49-50, well short of the 60 votes needed. All 49 yes votes came from Republicans. Senators Collins, Hawley, Moran and Tillis voted no, and Tillis did so to keep a motion to reconsider available.24 Coverage agrees that the deadlock was mostly about ethics provisions on officials' crypto holdings, plus disputes over stablecoin yield and developer protections, rather than the split between the SEC and CFTC.2730

In the meantime, agencies are writing rules. The CFTC's notice is open for comments until December 14, and the SEC's custody proposal until December 7.24 House Financial Services Chair French Hill still hopes to pass a bill in the lame-duck session.26 For treasury companies, the lack of a law matters less than market conditions. Bitcoin's treatment as a commodity already has strong support in both chambers.27 Strategy's prospects depend more on mNAV, STRC's price and MSCI's November 11 list than on what Congress does.

The verdict

The 1,665-coin purchase marked a record holding but not a return to the old strategy. Strategy is now issuing common stock to buy back preferred stock and buying bitcoin in smaller amounts. In practice, it is running a balance-sheet repair effort with a bitcoin treasury attached. That is probably the right choice for a company whose 2026 showed the limits of its own model. The open question is whether shareholders, and index providers, will keep valuing it as something other than a leveraged bitcoin fund.