The largest holder of cryptocurrency sold bitcoins for the first time since 2022. Shares fell

Michael Saylor's Strategy has reduced a portion of its bitcoin reserves for the first time since December 2022 - despite years of management statements that the asset would not be sold. The deal was symbolic in terms of volume, but caused the company's shares to drop nearly 6% in trading on June 1 and heightened investor concerns that the largest corporate bitcoin holder is shifting from an accumulation strategy to more flexible balance sheet management.

Between Ma. 26 and 31, Strategy sold 32 bitcoins for about $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per coin, the company said in a statement. At the same time, the company sold nearly 802,000 shares and thereby raised $128.3 million. Strategy plans to use the proceeds from the cryptocurrency sale to pay off preferred stock. This is only the second sale of bitcoins in the history of the company, CNBC specifies.

Strategy shares were down 5.9 percent at the close of trading on June 1, to their lowest level in six weeks. Bitcoin also fell to its lowest levels since mid-April.

Previously, Strategy did not plan to sell bitcoins, adhering to the HODL ("Hold at any cost") strategy, but after the time of publication of the first quarter 2026 financial statements, Chairman Michael Saylor allowed such a possibility to fund dividends, recalls MarketWatch. The company now allows the sale of cryptocurrency if it will increase bitcoins per share, support dividend payments or strengthen the company's financial position, CNBC quotes Strategy head Fong Le as saying.

Wall Street is divided in its assessment of Strategy's actions. Selling the cryptocurrency may even benefit the company, suggested Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer. "The market has been underestimating or ignoring the value of the company's bitcoin reserve on the assumption that it would never sell it," MarketWatch quoted him as saying. Investors will now begin to see the reserve as a real asset capable of generating cash flow, and the stock offering will remain the primary source of funding.

But Frontier co-founder Luisa Lavallee warns of the risk: "The more often investors hear that large holders of bitcoin are starting to sell it, the more the question arises - why hold bitcoin when you can buy shares in AI companies and make more money."

Strategy's previous bitcoin sale took place in December 2022 - at the height of the bear market amid the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange. At that time, the company sold 704 bitcoins for $11.8 million (at a price of $16,776 - four times lower than the current price).

One of the key elements of Strategy's new strategy is the STRC instrument - an income-generating security backed by the company's balance sheet with a high share of bitcoin, CNBC writes. According to the publication, the company expects to turn its crypto reserves into a kind of credit mechanism to build up bitcoin reserves faster than a simple buy-and-hold strategy due to investor demand.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor