Bitcoin treasury company Strategy diluted shareholders of MSTR, the company’s common stock, by $333.7 million last week and bought no bitcoin ($BTC). Instead, the company redirected about 40% of the proceeds to repurchase STRC for its preferred shareholders, 16% as STRC dividends, and kept the rest for itself as cash.
Strategy disclosed the transactions in an SEC filing this morning. It was the company’s fourth straight week of diluting MSTR shareholders with $0 $BTC purchases.
In fact, Strategy has not increased its $BTC holdings since June 21, 2026. It owns 6,916 fewer $BTC today than it did two months ago.
As a reward for patiently enduring founder Michael Saylor’s shareholder dilution program, MSTR shareholders have lost 16% of their investment since the company reported its last $BTC purchase.
In fact, since the July 2025 debut of STRC on the Nasdaq, the price of MSTR has declined 75%.
The STRC rollercoaster from $100 to $71.25 to $95
Strategy has raised roughly $16.3 billion by diluting MSTR since it launched STRC, a dividend-paying preferred share that is supposed to trade near $100 yet has actually traded as low as $71.25 on the Nasdaq.
As STRC collapsed earlier this year, the company started to stack USD instead of $BTC — an effort to assure investors that it would pay STRC dividends. It also resorted to direct buybacks of STRC after amassing cash didn’t do the trick.
Still, STRC languishes, trading below $95 today.
Strategy has sold nearly 7,000 $BTC in 2026
Saylor’s company has bought back $347 million worth of STRC — reversing STRC’s supposed $BTC accretion benefit for MSTR shareholders.
Originally, Strategy designed STRC to sell for $100 and fund $BTC purchases for the benefit of all shareholders, including MSTR in particular.
Instead, for the past two months, the company has been doing the opposite: selling MSTR plus $BTC holdings and buying back STRC.
MSTR suffers as STRC struggles way below par
Strategy has thrown most of its balance sheet at pushing the price of STRC back up. It has lifted its dividend from 9% at launch and raised it to 12% — a rate more typical of distressed debt. It moved to paying that dividend twice a month. Saylor even built up Strategy’s cash position to $4.8 billion.
Frustrated, in July, it started buying the shares back on the open market.
It can only buy back shares for so long, and management is starting to hedge. The company stated, “We will not necessarily increase the STRC dividend rate solely because STRC trades below its stated amount.” Its own quarterly report concedes, “We cannot assure that STRC stock will trade in that range or at any particular price.”
Saylor is less equivocal. He told analysts on July 30, “STRC will return to par, and the only question is how much money or time will we have to exert to get it to par.”
Common shareholders are paying for that return.
Despite rate hikes, twice-monthly payouts, unprecedented sales of $BTC, and $347 million of buybacks, STRC has moved from the mid-$80s to about $95, still 5% below par.
