Strategy CEO Phong Le says bitcoin sales hinge on maths over equity

Strategy (MSTR) would sell part of its 818,334 bitcoin holding only when doing so proves more accretive to shareholders than issuing equity, chief executive Phong Le told CNBC on Saturday, setting tight boundaries around the largest corporate bitcoin treasury on the public market.

The company, which rebranded from MicroStrategy last year to cement its pivot into a leveraged bitcoin vehicle, has two specific triggers for a sale: funding the 11.5 per cent dividend on its Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC), and deferring or offsetting taxes. Both conditions must pass a single hurdle. Selling bitcoin must improve the firm’s bitcoin-per-share ratio relative to issuing new common shares.

“I believe in math over ideology,” Le said. “At the point where selling bitcoin versus selling equity to pay a dividend is better for our bitcoin per share, that’s when we’d act.”

The comments mark a deliberate departure from the “never sell” posture that defined the company under co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor, who built Strategy’s bitcoin position through repeated equity raises and convertible note offerings starting in 2020. Saylor had telegraphed the shift on Tuesday during Strategy’s first-quarter earnings call, telling investors the firm could sell bitcoin periodically “just to inoculate the market” against the reflexive assumption that any sale would signal distress.

Saylor added that if bitcoin appreciates more than 2.3 per cent annually, Strategy can fund its dividend obligations indefinitely without issuing common stock or touching its bitcoin position. The preferred shares pay roughly $1bn in dividends each year. The firm’s bitcoin holdings, accumulated at an average cost near $67,000 per coin, are now worth more than $66bn.

Le dismissed concerns that Strategy’s position is too large to liquidate without moving the market. Daily bitcoin trading volume runs at approximately $60bn, he noted, against annual dividend obligations of just over $1bn. That represents a fraction of a single day’s spot volume. “We could stop selling MSTR common stock right now. We can fund the dividends with bitcoin sales,” Le said.

The company has built a multi-year cash buffer covering two to three years of preferred dividend payments, designed to prevent any forced sale during a bitcoin downturn. Strategy also completed a $1.44bn equity raise in 8.5 days during the first quarter, which Le cited as evidence the firm can access traditional funding rapidly when its stock trades above the company’s modified net asset value, or mNAV.

How the BPS mechanism works

The bitcoin-per-share metric has become Strategy’s governing financial measure. When the stock trades above mNAV, issuing new shares is accretive to BPS. The share count rises but the bitcoin held per outstanding share increases, creating a feedback loop that favours buying more bitcoin rather than selling it. A sale would only make sense in the reverse scenario: the stock trading below mNAV, capital markets closed or pricing equity prohibitively, and dividend obligations falling due simultaneously.

Le described the mNAV threshold as a circuit breaker that only trips when shareholders are already undervaluing the company’s core asset. “The market has to tell us our stock isn’t worth our bitcoin for us to consider selling it,” he said.

The STRC preferred stock, issued in March 2025, was designed as a permanent capital instrument. Its 11.5 per cent coupon is fixed regardless of bitcoin’s price, which is why Le treats the dividend as an inescapable cost that must be funded either by equity issuance or, as a last resort, by bitcoin sales. The cash buffer is the first line of defence; equity raises are the second; bitcoin sales are the third.

What it means for the bitcoin market

Strategy’s signalling matters beyond its own balance sheet. As the largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, its treasury decisions set a precedent for the growing cohort of firms that have added bitcoin to their reserves. That list now includes Coinbase, which disclosed 16,492 BTC in its Q1 filing this week, and Trump Media, whose $406m Q1 loss was partly driven by a writedown on its bitcoin and Cronos holdings.

The broader corporate treasury trend has gathered pace in 2026. More than 40 publicly traded companies now hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, according to BitcoinTreasuries data, with aggregate holdings exceeding $80bn. Strategy alone accounts for roughly 80 per cent of that total, making its capital-allocation framework the template for any firm considering a bitcoin treasury policy.

Strategy’s preferred stock reclaimed $100 par on Friday, clearing a technical threshold that positions the company to resume accretive bitcoin purchases. Le’s remarks reinforce that the company views its treasury as a lever governed by arithmetic, not market sentiment.

Bitcoin traded near $81,000 on Saturday, up roughly 8 per cent from its late-April lows. The cryptocurrency touched $80,000 briefly on Friday as optimism around the Iran peace talks lifted risk assets, before settling into a tight range. Strategy’s stock closed at $287.44 on Friday, up 12 per cent from its post-earnings dip. Investors appeared to read Le’s perimeter-setting as a stabilising signal rather than a retreat from the bitcoin thesis.