Strategy (MSTR.US), known as the "Bitcoin whale" and "Bitcoin proxy stock," has stated that the bear market for Bitcoin is over.
With Bitcoin recently rebounding to around $83,000, company founder and CEO Michael Saylor emphasized that the deep cryptocurrency market decline over the past year has ended, and predicted that Bitcoin will soon break through $100,000 again. "It definitely should return to six figures, above $100,000," the co-founder and executive chairman of the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "We bottomed out at slightly below $60,000, and I think we've bounced from there. Now, we're back in the $80,000 range. I think it will continue to move forward from here."
Bitcoin is currently hovering around the $83,000 mark, having traded around $80,000 since mid-August. The price is still about 30% below its all-time high of $126,251 reached in October 2025. Just days after that record high, a record $19 billion in positions were liquidated within 24 hours across the cryptocurrency market, and the earliest-born cryptocurrency has since struggled to build sustained upward momentum.
Strategy's stock price has experienced a similar decline and partial recovery to Bitcoin. To weather the bear market, Saylor introduced a new capital framework that allows the company to sell Bitcoin and accelerate the issuance of common stock to increase cash reserves and repurchase dividend-paying preferred shares, partly aimed at reducing leverage while strengthening liquidity. Strategy had temporarily paused Bitcoin purchases and even sold Bitcoin in recent months. In recent weeks, the company's purchase volume has been smaller compared to the scale of buying during the previous bull market.
Saylor expects the company will purchase more Bitcoin and begin issuing more securities to fund future purchases. "We're entering a bull market, so I expect we will likely buy Bitcoin and issue credit-type securities in the bull market," Saylor said in the media interview. "Our long-term bull market forecast is that Bitcoin will rise 20% to 30% per year over the next few years."
Despite Saylor's increased optimism about Bitcoin, the company faces another potential headwind. MSCI is considering adopting new index rules that could remove Strategy from its global equity benchmark index, further increasing pressure on its financing model. The proposed adjustment would exclude companies that MSCI determines are primarily engaged in asset accumulation rather than operating a business. "We think their position so far has been disappointing because they are applying biased value judgments to digital assets," Saylor said. "I think this sets a bad precedent for themselves and the entire industry, and I hope they reconsider." MSCI is expected to announce its decision on Friday.
In November last year, a calculation by Wall Street financial giant JPMorgan showed that funds at risk of outflow could be as high as $2.8 billion. Saylor said Strategy should be viewed as an operating company, not an asset-holding company.
Bitcoin has rebounded to around $83,000, and Saylor has declared the bear market over, expecting a return above $100,000 and projecting 20% to 30% annual gains over the next few years. Strategy, meanwhile, is making small additions while repurchasing preferred shares and reducing cash distribution burdens: the coin price recovery and financing capacity repair together support its bullish narrative, while MSCI's upcoming index rule decision constitutes a key test.
Strategy's latest moves better reflect its capital allocation logic: from October 5-11, the company spent $21.5 million to buy 250 Bitcoins, bringing its holdings to 848,250 coins, yet in the same week it used $192.4 million to repurchase STRC preferred shares, about nine times its Bitcoin purchase expenditure; from August 3-9, it had also sold 1,690 Bitcoins and used the $108.6 million in proceeds to repurchase STRC. Bitcoin itself does not generate interest-paying cash flow, and reducing the number of preferred shares can lower future dividend requirements. Therefore, buying and selling Bitcoin both serve balance sheet management, and only improved financing conditions related to Bitcoin's long-term appreciation can help re-expand accumulation.
Under Michael Saylor's leadership, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) began investing almost all of its corporate cash into Bitcoin in 2020. As a result, Strategy's rise was built on a breakthrough and highly innovative financing flywheel strategy: sell stock, buy Bitcoin, ride Bitcoin's unprecedented bull market rally, and repeat the process. At its peak, the company's market value far exceeded the value of its cryptocurrency assets. Now, that premium faces market skepticism, and equity market investors' belief in the "Bitcoin treasury model" is not as firm as it was during Bitcoin's explosive rally.
The core of global index compiler MSCI's latest discussion is not Bitcoin itself, but rather redrawing the boundary between "operating companies" and "investment vehicles": if Strategy, known as the "Bitcoin whale" and "Bitcoin proxy stock," is deemed by MSCI to be primarily engaged in asset accumulation rather than conducting business with sufficient operational substance, its index eligibility could be revoked, triggering passive fund selling, reduced investor coverage, higher financing costs, and equity dilution pressure. Thus, this is not merely a potential index adjustment, but a systematic stress test of Saylor's entire capital flywheel of "coin price rises—securities issuance financing—buy more Bitcoin."
Wall Street's long-term bullish logic for Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies centers on supply constraints, expanded institutional allocation channels, and the currency debasement trade. Renowned investment institution Bernstein predicted on August 26 that Bitcoin would reach $150,000 by mid-2027 and a cycle high of about $300,000 by 2029, while maintaining its $1 million forecast by the end of 2033; Standard Chartered had previously reiterated on September 15 its target of $500,000 by the end of 2030. Bernstein analysts value the currency debasement trade under debt pressure, and if further combined with ETF and institutional allocation channel expansion, it could amplify new demand against a backdrop of limited supply growth.
Short-term performance still depends on real buying and funding costs. On the 13th, the decline in the dollar and US Treasury yields helped ease pressure on risk assets; however, Farside data shows that from October 5-9, US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw combined net outflows of about $679 million, with another $65.4 million outflow on the 12th. A high interest rate/high US Treasury yield environment significantly raises the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets, and whether ETF net subscriptions can resume will determine whether the institutional bullish narrative can translate into spot demand.
Assuming Bitcoin's price remains unchanged, raising the same $100 million allows the purchase of the same number of Bitcoins; however, the lower the company's stock price, the more shares need to be issued, the more obvious the equity dilution, and therefore the smaller the increase in Bitcoin holdings per share, which may even be diluted. For Strategy, the MSCI proposed rules could also affect its financing premium. If removed, the funds tracking the index would sell the company's stock; if the stock price and premium relative to net asset value come under pressure, equity financing of the same scale could require issuing more shares, significantly weakening per-share accumulation efficiency—that is, if the stock price is under pressure, equity financing of the same scale would require issuing more shares, increasing equity dilution and weakening the enhancement effect of financing Bitcoin purchases on Bitcoin holdings per share. MSCI is expected to announce the consultation results by October 16 at the latest, and has not yet made a final removal decision.
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