Strategy is quietly rewriting the core logic of its bitcoin strategy. The world's largest corporate holder of bitcoin announced it is abandoning its long-held "never sell" stance, shifting toward actively managing its balance sheet to maximize bitcoin value per share.
During an earnings call on Tuesday evening, the company's President and CEO, Phong Le, explicitly stated that selling bitcoin for U.S. dollars, or using it to repay debt, is under consideration if it helps increase the bitcoin value per share.
This marks the first public declaration of a strategic shift since founder and Chairman Michael Saylor established the "never sell" principle.
Concurrently, Strategy reported a first-quarter net loss of $125 billion, primarily resulting from the significant decline in bitcoin's price earlier this year. Following the news, the company's stock fell over 4% in after-hours trading.
From "HODLing" to "Managing": A Fundamental Strategic Shift Phong Le's remarks during the earnings call clearly pointed to the new direction: "We're not going to sit there and say we're never selling bitcoin." He emphasized the goal is to be a net accumulator of bitcoin—not just increasing the total bitcoin holdings, but more importantly, boosting the bitcoin per share, which the company believes delivers the most long-term value to MSTR shareholders.
Bitcoin per share is an informal metric used by Strategy to measure shareholders' bitcoin exposure, reflecting the amount of bitcoin represented by each share. This metric changes as the company acquires more bitcoin, issues new shares, or sells bitcoin for debt management or share buybacks. Strategy's year-to-date BTC yield is approximately 9%, indicating the growth rate of its bitcoin holdings per share.
Saylor provided theoretical backing for the new strategy during the same call, using a real estate developer analogy. He stated that if a company buys land for $10,000 per acre and sells it for $100,000, using the profits to buy more land or to pay debt interest, no one would consider it damaging to real estate value or a sign of business model failure. "A real estate development company exists to buy low and sell high," he said. "We are like a bitcoin development company."
Balance Sheet Pressure Emerges; Dollar Reserves Reach $22.5 Billion The shift in Strategy's approach was not entirely unforeseen. In December of last year, the company established a dollar reserve, which has now grown to $22.5 billion, specifically designated for fulfilling preferred stock dividend obligations and repaying debt interest. The company has consistently funded its bitcoin purchases through issuing new shares and bonds.
As of the end of the first quarter, Strategy holds 818,334 bitcoins, with a total acquisition cost of approximately $61.81 billion and an average holding cost of about $75,500 per bitcoin. This represents nearly 4% of bitcoin's total supply. Since the beginning of the year, the company has accumulated approximately 63,000 new bitcoins.
The $125 billion net loss for the quarter directly reflects the impact of the decline in bitcoin's price at the start of the year on its book value. Against this backdrop, a strategy relying solely on passive accumulation without active management faces increasing financial pressure.
The core of this strategic adjustment lies in a change in the company's performance evaluation metrics—shifting focus from "how much bitcoin is held" to "how much bitcoin each share represents." This change implies that even selling a portion of bitcoin under specific circumstances aligns with the company's long-term interests, provided it enhances the bitcoin value per share.
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