Strategy's Small BTC Sale Hits STRC, Ripples Into DeFi Stablecoin Proxies

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) stirred markets this week after disclosing a rare bitcoin sale to help cover preferred-stock distributions, triggering a pullback in its high-yield STRC preferred and losses in crypto products designed to mirror STRC exposure. In a securities filing, the company said it sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31 for about $2.5 million. The proceeds were designated to support distributions on STRC. The move marked Strategy's first bitcoin sale since December 2022 and drew attention given founder Michael Saylor's long-standing stance against selling BTC. On the company's Q1 earnings call, Saylor said Strategy would "probably sell some BTC to fund a dividend just to inoculate the market." Prior to the sale, Strategy reported holding more than 843,700 BTC. STRC, the dividend-paying preferred, slipped below its $100 reference price, trading as much as 5.3% under par intraday and sitting about 4% below its earlier range. The preferred is down about 3.8% month to date. STRC carries an annualized dividend of 11.5%. Strategy introduced STRC in July 2025 with a 9% rate and increased the payout seven times as the shares remained below the $100 reference level. Under the stated terms, Strategy will pay a monthly dividend of 0.96% on the $100 par value this month. STRC's market capitalization has grown to about $10 billion, more than tripling since the start of the year as investors sought yield alongside exposure to Strategy's bitcoin holdings. The weakness also reached crypto-native and DeFi products that package STRC-like exposure. Protocols including Saturn and Apyx issue stablecoin-style tokens partially backed by STRC. Saturn's sUSDat, with a market value near $100 million, fell about 3.7% this week. Apyx's apxUSD dropped roughly 4.1% over the same period. Both had traded close to $1 for months as markets treated STRC exposure as a steady yield source, and the decline highlighted how stress in a preferred stock can spill into synthetic stablecoins built around it. Bitcoin fell about 4.4% in the 24 hours following the filing and is down roughly 12% over the past week. Strategy's common stock slid about 15% over the same timeframe. Traders pointed to the signaling effect of a Strategy BTC sale after years of anti-sale messaging, followed by weaker bitcoin prices that intensified selling in Strategy-linked instruments. The episode also renewed attention on risk. STRC is not a bank deposit and has no FDIC or SIPC protection. Strategy does not guarantee STRC's market price or future dividends. Even preferred stock tied to a bitcoin-heavy balance sheet can reprice quickly when sentiment turns. A sale that was small in size nonetheless exposed vulnerabilities in a rapidly scaled preferred-stock product and the DeFi instruments tied to it, prompting investors to reassess the risks of treating STRC and STRC-linked stablecoins as near-stable, high-yield trades.