GoKawiilMichael Saylor, chairman of MicroStrategy, speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, US, on Friday, July 26, 2024. The conference is an annual event organized by BTC Media LLC for fans of the original cryptocurrency. Photographer: Liam Kennedy/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Strategy's latest earnings release marks a subtle but meaningful shift in the company's approach to bitcoin: Instead of passively stockpiling bitcoin, it's going to more actively manage the balance sheet to maximize value of bitcoin per share.
That's a reversal from the company's longstanding "never sell" strategy, which originated with chairman, founder and bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor – and it comes as the company posts a $12.5 billion net loss in the first quarter due to the slump in the bitcoin price during the beginning of the year.
"Our ability to sell bitcoin either to buy U.S. dollars or sell bitcoin to buy debt if it's accretive to bitcoin per share is something that we would consider doing going forward," Phong Le, president and CEO of the company, said on the earnings call Tuesday evening.
In December, Strategy established a U.S. dollar reserve, which now holds $2.25 billion, to ensure it can meet its obligations to pay dividends on its preferred stock and interest on its outstanding debt.
The company has been funding its bitcoin purchases by issuing new equity and debt.
"We will sell bitcoin when it's advantageous to the company," Le said later on the same call. "We're not going to sit back and just say, 'We'll never sell the bitcoin.' We want to be net aggregators of bitcoin – increasing our total bitcoin, but more importantly, increasing our bitcoin per share because we think that is what is going to be most accretive long term for MSTR."
Shares were lower by 3% in after hours trading.