Over the past week, Strategy, the company led by Michael Saylor, acquired another 34,164 Bitcoin. The total price came to USD 2.542 billion, with an average price of USD 74,395 per coin. As a result, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder booked its biggest purchase since November 2024.
With this transaction, holdings rise to 815,061 BTC at cumulative investments of USD 61.56 billion. At the time of the announcement, Strategy therefore overtakes the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) with roughly 802,823 BTC and moves into position as the largest institutional Bitcoin holder. The company disclosed the purchase on 20 April via an 8-K filing with the SEC.
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Financing through ATM programmes
The funds come exclusively from the at-the-market programmes (ATM), through which Strategy continuously places shares on the secondary market. Specifically, the company sold 21,795,389 STRC shares during the reporting period, generating net proceeds of USD 2,176.3 million. In addition, 2,165,000 MSTR common shares brought in a further USD 366.0 million. The sum of issuance proceeds matches the Bitcoin investment of USD 2.5 billion exactly.
STRC is the most recent class of preferred shares that Strategy issued for Bitcoin financing. The instrument carries the name Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred and currently yields 11.5 percent annualised. Most recently, the company proposed distributing the dividend twice a month to keep the exchange price closer to the nominal value. For the preferred classes STRF, STRK and STRD, however, Strategy recorded no sales.
The remaining ATM capacity is substantial. For STRC, USD 19.463 billion remains open, and for MSTR another USD 26.730 billion. Together, that amounts to more than USD 46 billion in unused issuance capacity. As long as capital markets show willingness to subscribe, the company remains a structural source of demand in the Bitcoin market.
Symbolic overtaking of BlackRock
The figures mark an institutional milestone. Strategy now directly holds 3.8 percent of the maximum Bitcoin supply of 21 million coins. BlackRock's IBIT, the dominant spot ETF since January 2024, stands at 802,823 BTC at the time of the announcement. The difference of roughly 12,000 BTC is volatile given daily IBIT flows, yet the gap remains symbolically significant.
The difference between the two vehicles is structural. IBIT holds Bitcoin on a fiduciary basis for ETF investors, who can redeem at any time. Strategy, by contrast, keeps the coins directly on the balance sheet and has historically never liquidated a position. Notably, investor behaviour drives holdings at BlackRock, while Strategy's holdings result from an active management decision. As a result, an operating company sits at the top of the institutional Bitcoin rankings for the first time.
The MSTR share had gained roughly 30 percent the previous week after Bitcoin briefly traded above USD 78,000 over the preceding weekend. At the time of the 8-K filing, the spot price stood between USD 75,000 and USD 76,000. With a cost basis of USD 75,527, Strategy's cumulative position currently sits near the break-even point.
From software firm to Bitcoin proxy
Strategy was founded in 1989 as MicroStrategy, focused on business-intelligence software. The turning point came in August 2020, when Saylor declared Bitcoin the primary treasury asset and executed the first purchase of 21,454 BTC for USD 250 million. Since then, the company has relegated the software division to a secondary role. The market capitalisation now tracks almost entirely with the Bitcoin position.
The ATM programmes have turned Strategy into a permanent issuer. Common stock serves as a leveraged instrument on Bitcoin, while preferred shares such as STRC offer institutional investors an ongoing yield. This yield is fed indirectly by the premium between the share price and the Bitcoin net asset value. The model only remains viable as long as MSTR trades above the intrinsic value of the coins held. If the premium shrinks, financing capacity shrinks as well.
The current purchase ranks as the third-largest single acquisition in the company's history. Two larger transactions fell in November and December 2024, when Bitcoin began its rally toward USD 100,000. Saylor announced the transaction on X the evening before, using his customary "Orange Dot" chart. The market reaction was accordingly routine: MSTR gained only moderately in after-hours trading, because investors now price the purchases in as a recurring pattern.
