Strategy Halts Bitcoin Purchases Until STRC Returns to $100 Par — or BTC Slides Toward $10,000

Strategy, the largest known corporate holder of Bitcoin, says it will keep its buying program on pause until its preferred shares recover to par. Chief executive Phong Le told Bloomberg TV the company's immediate goal is to push its Stretch preferred (STRC) back to the $100 par value; once there, Strategy plans to issue additional preferred stock to finance fresh Bitcoin purchases and potentially further build its U.S. dollar reserve. Le said he is "unsure" how long that recovery will take. Preferred issuance sits at the center of Strategy's capital playbook because it is "very accretive to our Bitcoin per share," Le said. That math becomes less compelling when the preferreds trade below par. Strategy last bought Bitcoin in late June. Since then, the company sold common stock to raise $467 million, lifting its U.S. dollar reserve to about $3 billion, which it says is sufficient to cover roughly two years of dividend payments. Le described the shift as an expansion "from being a Bitcoin treasury company to a full digital capital platform," with greater emphasis on liquidity and capital flexibility. STRC has traded below its $100 par since mid-May and was around $89 on Wednesday. Issuing preferred shares below par would amount to raising capital at a discount, weakening the accretive impact on Bitcoin per share. Le said building the dollar reserve is the main lever to restore market confidence, noting the reserve buildup helped lift STRC from around $75 to near $90. Le rejected the idea that Strategy is stepping back from its core thesis. The company holds more than 840,000 BTC, about 4% of Bitcoin's 21 million maximum supply, and remains the largest identified holder. He pointed to Bitcoin's $30–$40 billion in daily trading volume and said Strategy's recent $216 million in sales "did not move the market." The selling began after co-founder Michael Saylor trimmed the firm's roughly $54 billion Bitcoin position last month, reopening debate over the durability of the debt-and-equity "flywheel" that financed many purchases since 2020. Standard Chartered analysts have characterized recent trading activity as "mostly noise." Two weeks ago, Strategy announced a new capital framework that gives management more room to sell BTC, buy back securities and protect liquidity$a structure Le said is designed to operate through volatility. Le also dismissed a Bloomberg report suggesting distressed funds were negotiating STRC swap deals, saying Strategy has not had "any material conversations" on that front. On downside risk, he said meaningful debt stress would emerge only if Bitcoin falls "closer to $8,000 to $10,000." Until then, he said, the balance sheet remains secure. "We've been through this in 2022. We're going through it in 2026, and I'm pretty excited about the next bull market of Bitcoin," Le added. Market performance has been rough: Strategy's common stock (MSTR) is down more than 77% over the past year. Bitcoin has fallen about 45% over the same period and now trades at roughly half its October all-time high, leaving the preferred-share funding engine below the level Le says he needs to restart it. Prediction market Myriad (owned by Decrypt parent Dastan) puts the odds at 13% that Strategy will hold more than 1 million BTC before 2027. Reaching that threshold would require buying more than 150,000 BTC with less than a year remaining. Strategy's message: purchases are paused, not abandoned. The firm is prioritizing liquidity and waiting for STRC to return to $100 par, unless market conditions shift. Le said only a severe Bitcoin decline into the $8,000–$10,000 range would force a more fundamental rethink.