Prominent financial commentator and Euro Pacific Capital Chief Economist Peter Schiff has launched a scathing attack on Strategy (MSTR), its founder Michael Saylor, and mainstream financial media after a sharp correction in the company’s equity.
Schiff, a notorious Bitcoin skeptic, is convinced that the company’s heavily leveraged crypto-treasury model is unwinding.
An orange jumpsuit?
According to Schiff, the financial mechanics supporting MicroStrategy’s acquisition of digital assets are currently unravelling.
They are dragging their stock, debt instruments, and the broader cryptocurrency market sharply lower.
“The financial house of cards Saylor built is collapsing,” Schiff stated. “MSTR’s per-share discount to its Bitcoin holdings is soaring, $STRC is tanking, and Bitcoin itself is breaking down, taking the rest of crypto down with it. Soon Saylor will trade in his orange tie for an orange jumpsuit,” Schiff quipped.
The financial community is specifically laser-focused on the decline of the STRC stock, whose rapid descent could potentially force the company to sell more $BTC.
On June 16, Schiff noted that STRC was trading at 93.5, meaning “investors who paid $100 are already down 6.5% on an investment Saylor promoted as being safe for retirees who prioritize principal protection”.
By June 17, the pressure worsened. “STRC just traded below $89.50. That means that risk-averse retirees whom @aylor convinced to buy last month are already down over 10.5%, almost an entire year’s 11.5% yield,” Schiff observed.
Things started to get even worse for STRC, with the stock plummeting to a low of $85.32. Schiff warned that “to get the share price back up to $100, to make earlier investors whole and to issue new shares, MSTR needs to raise the yield to 13.5%. That means the $85.32 buyers get a yield of 17.5%”.
Schiff has noted that the company’s past sales were done at a premium. However, current sales are done at a discount. In fact, the company “is already down over $6 million on the 1,550 $BTC it just purchased”.
He claimed the acquisition reduced the net holdings per share, thus creating a “negative Bitcoin yield”. “So MSTR shareholders lost twice,” Schiff argued. “Even if you are bullish on Bitcoin, owning MSTR is the worst way to make that bet”.
According to Schiff, legal recourse could be on the horizon if marketing claims overstepped regulatory bounds.
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