Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway, has lost hundreds of millions of dollars on its Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) investment.
Unlike the Federal Reserve and other central banks, Norges Bank invests directly into equities, including stock index constituents like Strategy’s common stock, MSTR.
Sometimes, those investments go south. Indeed, the sovereign wealth fund has lost money this year on Canaan, MARA, and various public companies in the crypto sector.
Norges Bank has been buying small amounts of MSTR since 2008 — before Strategy even became a bitcoin (BTC) treasury company — but ramped up its purchases during 2024.
As of June 30, 2024, Norway had invested $217 million in MSTR, giving it 0.89% ownership of the company. Fast forward to December 31, 2024, and its investment had grown to $514 million.
Then, during the first half of 2025, it doubled its investment again from 5.8 billion to 11.9 billion Norwegian kroner — all at prices far above today’s value. It owned $1.18 billion worth of MSTR as of June 30, 2025, and has almost certainly been buying more since.
Every Strategy investor has lost money this year
Unfortunately, MSTR has lost 38% of its value since the start of the year, and has traded to new lows for seven months in 2025.
Every MSTR purchase this year, by anyone, on any day, has lost money amid the relentless decline of Michael Saylor’s company.
Chart of MSTR since January 1, 2025. Source: TradingView
Although Norges Bank doesn’t itemize its purchases by date and size, it’s nonetheless easy to estimate its losses. The bank provides formal investment reports semi-annually in Norway.
For its US holdings, it files quarterly or semi-annually via Securities and Exchange Commission form 13F filings.
Based on these filings, we know that the bank holds 2,976,182 shares of MSTR as of June 30, 2025 — double the 1,494,930 it owned as of September 30, 2024.
During Q4 2024, Norges Bank bought another 314,271 shares of MSTR.
Then, during the first half of 2025, the bank bought another 1,166,981 shares, bringing its total holdings up to 2,976,182 shares worth $1.18 billion as of June 30, 2025.
Read more: Norway has been stacking bitcoin exposure via MicroStrategy
Estimating losses for Norway’s central bank
Assuming a mid-point for those purchases during those quarters, the central bank might have purchased 314,271 MSTR at $345 per share during Q4 2024, and 1,166,981 MSTR at $331 per share.
Based on the $176 price of MSTR as of publication time, those $494 million worth of purchases might have lost $260 million.
In other words, it’s almost certain that the central bank has lost more than $200 million since September 30, 2024.
Moreover, the bank was almost certainly buying even more MSTR at far higher prices than today during the second half of 2025, although it hasn’t released its latest report with those details.
In fact, given its purchase of 1,481,252 shares from Q4 2024 through Q2 2025 relative to its total holdings of 2,976,182 shares, depending on how poorly the bank’s fund managers timed their recent purchases, the average cost basis of Norges Bank in MSTR might have fully crossed into negative territory this month.
As a member of the Nasdaq 100 and other indices, MSTR benefits from passive inflows from US and foreign funds with clients who want to track the performance of these indices.
In other words, Norges Bank probably doesn’t have any particular view on the investment prospects of Saylor or Strategy, but rather follows the Nasdaq 100 and other indices for broad US equity exposure.
