Strategy Buys No Bitcoin While Making $140 Million in Dividend Payments

Strategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, stopped accumulating the asset last week, as it made $140 million in dividend payments, according to a press release.

That was the first time that the Tysons Corner, Virginia-based firm, which owns 640,000 Bitcoin, put its Bitcoin-buying activity on pause since the end of July. On Monday, Strategy’s stockpile was worth nearly $80 billion, as Bitcoin’s price hovered close to all-time highs.

This year, Strategy has established several types of preferred shares as a way to access funding beyond convertible debt and common shares. Of the five that Strategy has issued, three of them feature a dividend rate of 10% APY (annualized percentage yield).

If Strategy misses dividend payments, the payout on some preferred shares will accrue. In an SEC filing, Strategy noted that payouts on its STRC and STRD stock included accrued interest, totaling $22.4 million and $37.6 million for the quarter, respectively.

Strategy shares rose 2.8% to $361 on Monday, according to Yahoo Finance. Year-to-date, they’ve rallied 25%, while jumping to $450 in July. On Monday, Strategy reported a $3.9 billion gain in the fair value of its Bitcoin holdings in the third quarter.

As mentioned, Strategy has issued three weekly updates this year in which it did not buy Bitcoin. Two of them coincided with the end of the first and second fiscal quarters, while Monday’s announcement coincided with the end of the third.

On Sunday, Strategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor appeared to telegraph the company’s lack of Bitcoin-buying activity. On X, he signaled there would be “no new orange dots this week,” while sharing a chart that represents Strategy’s previous Bitcoin purchases as such.

Traders on prediction market Polymarket were anticipating a Bitcoin purchase, indicating that the market hasn’t fully digested Strategy’s apparent cadence. The odds of a Bitcoin purchase being announced between Sept. 30 and Oct. 6 collapsed from over 60% to 1% on Sunday.

In his post on X, Saylor referenced a “$9 billion reminder of why we HODL,” using the popular misspelling of “hold” that  means “hold on for dear life” in the cryptosphere.

For some, it wasn’t clear what Saylor was referring to, with Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back positing that it was the “unrealized gain” in the value of Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings in the second quarter (Strategy actually disclosed a $14 billion unrealized Bitcoin gain in the second quarter).