Strategy Inc. has one number it needs to hit before it can stop selling Bitcoin: $100. As of Monday's pre-market session, the preferred stock doing the signaling traded at $95.55 — the closest it has been to that threshold since the company's capital structure went into distress in late May. In its Monday Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Strategy disclosed that between August 3 and August 9 it sold 1,690 Bitcoin for $108.6 million at an average price of $64,262 per coin, sold 6,585,682 shares of its common stock (MSTR) for $653.1 million in net proceeds, and used the entire Bitcoin sale proceeds to repurchase 1,152,020 shares of its STRC preferred stock. The company's USD Reserve now stands at $4.65 billion as of August 9.
MSTR shares were up roughly 0.2% in pre-market trading following the disclosure, with the stock having closed Friday at $100.01 after gaining 3.3% last week.
Another Week of Selling Below Cost — and the Math Behind It
The Bitcoin sale was not opportunistic. Strategy sold at roughly $64,262 per coin against an average acquisition cost of $75,385 — an implied loss of about $11,123 per coin, or roughly 15%.
The reason for selling at a loss traces to a strategic pivot Michael Saylor announced in late May, when he rebranded Strategy's operating model from a "bitcoin treasury company" to what the company now calls a Digital Credit Capital Framework. Under that framework, priority shifted from accumulating Bitcoin at all costs to servicing preferred stock dividend obligations and maintaining a stable USD reserve. Since Saylor officially adopted this framework on June 29, 2026, Strategy has sold approximately 6,948 Bitcoin — generating roughly $432 million in proceeds before this week's $108.6 million, bringing the total to approximately $540 million in Bitcoin disposed of since the pivot, according to CryptoTimes cumulative analysis.
The specific pressure point is STRC — Strategy's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock. STRC carries a $100 stated value per share but has been trading below that threshold since late May, making new issuance of the security unprofitable. When STRC trades below par, Strategy cannot sell new STRC shares through its at-the-market program to raise fresh capital — that channel only reopens at or above $100, as CoinDesk explained in June.
The One Number That Ends the Selling
Every investor watching Strategy's weekly disclosures is really watching one thing: STRC's price relative to $100. That number functions as the on/off switch for Strategy's entire preferred-issuance capital channel.
At the Q2 earnings call on July 30, CEO Michael Saylor made a public commitment that went beyond vague reassurance. "There's no question about whether or not success is returning it to par. It is returning it to par," he said. Saylor noted that when STRC launched in July 2025, it took 70 trading days to reach its $100 par value after trading at $90 on its IPO date. Applying the same 70-trading-day window from when STRC broke below its par range on May 28 produces a target restoration date of approximately September 8, 2026 — a public deadline Saylor has not walked back, per Q2 earnings call highlights and BigGo Finance's Q2 STRC summary.
STRC closed Friday at $95.01 and ticked up to $95.55 in Monday pre-market trading. That is a recovery of approximately 34% from its intraday low of $71.25 in late June 2026 — when Bitcoin briefly fell below $60,000 and prime brokers cut advance ratios on leveraged STRC positions, producing a cascade of forced sales — according to CoinDesk's August 5 recovery report.
As of Monday, prediction markets price the probability of STRC reaching $100 by December 31 at 66.5%, up from 36% just a week earlier, according to Cryptonomist's August 10 market analysis.
How $785 Million Is Doing the Work
The mechanism Strategy is using to push STRC back toward par is direct repurchase. Under its Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program, authorized on June 29, 2026, Strategy originally allocated $1 billion to buying back STRC shares in the open market, reducing the available supply and supporting the price. This week's $108.6 million in Bitcoin sale proceeds went entirely toward STRC repurchases — buying 1,152,020 shares at an average effective price of roughly $94.26 per share, per the August 10 8-K filing.
After this week's use, $785.2 million remains under the preferred buyback authorization. That is the primary financial instrument available for STRC recovery, and it is what makes the September 8 target operationally plausible rather than merely rhetorical.
The week prior — August 3, 2026 — Strategy sold 1,638 Bitcoin for $104.73 million and used $52.4 million for preferred dividends and $52.3 million for STRC repurchases, while simultaneously buying back 912,143 STRC shares for $81.2 million using MSTR equity proceeds, bringing the USD Reserve to $4.0 billion before this week's additions, per the August 3 8-K filing.
In parallel, the MSTR equity ATM program sold 6,585,682 shares this past week for $653.1 million in net proceeds, with $650 million of that flowing into the USD Reserve — the fund specifically designated to service preferred dividends and interest.
What STRC's Recovery Actually Requires
Returning STRC to $100 par is not as simple as writing the biggest buyback check fastest. The instrument's design creates specific conditions.
STRC launched in July 2025 at $90 with a 9% annual dividend rate. Its variable dividend mechanism adjusts the rate each month to steer the price toward $100, with one important asymmetric feature: the ratchet. Each time STRC falls below $95, the dividend rate automatically increases by 0.5 percentage points. That increase is permanent — it cannot be reversed even if the price recovers. STRC has passed through the $95 threshold enough times to reach its current 12% annualized dividend rate, its seventh consecutive increase from the 9% starting point, according to news.bitcoin.com's August 1 analysis.
The result: every $0.50 semi-monthly dividend declared per share is now the cost of maintaining the instrument at 12% per year. Strategy's August 3 8-K filing confirmed it will hold the 12% rate for August and does not intend to recommend a reduction until STRC demonstrates sustained trading at or near its $100 stated amount.
At $95 and rising, STRC has technically exited the ratchet trigger zone — which sits below $95 — meaning no new automatic rate increases are currently being triggered. That is meaningful because it stops the accumulation of additional fixed-rate obligations, even if it does not reduce the existing 12% cost.
Saylor Separates Personal Conviction from Corporate Action
As selling became routine at the institutional level, Saylor took deliberate steps last week to distinguish his personal Bitcoin holdings from Strategy's capital management activities.
"When I say 'Never Sell Your Bitcoin,' I speak as one saver to another. I have never sold mine. Not one satoshi," Saylor wrote on X. "Strategy is a public company, not my wallet."
