According to a new X post by Jim Chanos, who profitably short-sold Michael Saylor’s $BTC acquisition company a year ago, there is still $80 billion of “pure arbitrage” on the table.
Chanos called the catalyst of Strategy selling its own stock a trading opportunity.
“One of the greatest pure arbitrage situations, ever,” he stated, also calling it “an $80 billion actionable spread.”
Chanos isn’t recommending an $80 billion trade in full but merely pointing out the broad opportunity within which a trader can time specific entries and exits.
The idea is that a skeptic can short any amount of MSTR, directly or via derivatives, with a spot or derivative long position in $BTC that is proportional to Strategy’s $BTC holdings and sized appropriately to the overall position.
In his post, Chanos didn’t confirm that he’d initiated a new MSTR short-sale, disclose a hedge ratio, or calculate how he reached his $80 billion estimate.
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The CFTC defines arbitrage as buying and selling identical or equivalent instruments to capture a price discrepancy.
Although MSTR is certainly related to Strategy’s $BTC holdings, it’s neither identical nor exchangeable. Indeed, Strategy disclaims that MSTR gives stockholders no ownership interest in, nor redemption right to, its $BTC.
According to the company, MSTR offers “amplified exposure” to $BTC.
MSTR often trades erratically and idiosyncratically, so timing an entry and exit takes skill by a capital markets operator.
The mNAV premium of MSTR to $BTC holdings has fluctuated wildly over Strategy’s corporate lifespan. Since December 2020 when Strategy had amassed over 70,000 $BTC, the basic mNAV of MSTR has traded between a 0.5x low to a 3.7x high.
Chanos was able to capture an mNAV decline, per Protos’ prior reporting, from a late-2024 entry near 2.5x basic mNAV to his November 2025 exit near 1.23x.