Strategy Sinks 39% in 2026, Trailing the Bitcoin ETF It Was Built to Beat

Strategy’s (NASDAQ:MSTR | MSTR Price Prediction) shares are rising Monday afternoon, up 5% to $97.95, but the headline this week isn’t today’s bounce. The year-to-date (YTD) scoreboard shows the Bitcoin treasury company trailing the spot Bitcoin ETF it was built to outperform.

Monday afternoon, Strategy stock was down 36% YTD and down 73% over the past year. Meanwhile, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (NASDAQ:IBIT) shares were down 27% YTD. Strategy sells itself as leveraged bitcoin exposure, so a down year for the asset means a harder fall, and the premium investors once paid for that leverage has compressed, leaving holders absorbing downside without keeping the premium.

A Monday 8-K and reporting from Bloomberg, Stocktwits and Decrypt laid out how the accumulation machine ran in reverse last week. Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) recovered from a weekend dip below $63,000 and traded around $63,500, up 0.9% over 24 hours.

The Flywheel in Reverse

Strategy did not buy or sell bitcoin in the seven days ended August 16. The company’s holdings sit at 840,447 BTC at an average purchase price of $75,385, down from a peak above 847,300 BTC.

Strategy sold roughly 3,458,866 shares of common stock through its at-the-market program for $333.7 million in net proceeds, at an average of $96.48 per share, down from $99.17 the week before. Those proceeds split three ways: $52.4 million to pay STRC preferred dividends, $132.2 million to repurchase STRC shares, and $149.1 million into the dollar reserve.