MicroStrategy’s recent, modest Bitcoin sell-off has put Michael Saylor’s “never sell” mantra under the microscope — and he publicly defended the move.
At BTC Prague on June 11, Saylor addressed the controversy after Strategy (MicroStrategy) disclosed selling 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31 for roughly $2.5 million, at an average price of $77,135 per coin. That was the company’s first disclosed Bitcoin sale since December 2022. “I said to YOU never sell your bitcoin,” Saylor told the audience, but he stressed a distinction between personal advice and corporate treasury management — framing the trade as a funding decision, not a shift in conviction.
Company filings clarified why the sale happened: proceeds were expected to support preferred-stock distributions. The board had declared cash dividends payable June 30 across multiple preferred series (STRF, STRC, STRE, STRK and STRD), with the STRC dividend carrying an annual rate of 11.50%. The 32 BTC sale amounted to only about 0.0038% of Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings at the time — tiny relative to the treasury but symbolically significant given the firm’s long-standing accumulation narrative.
Soon after the small sale, Strategy made a much larger purchase. Between June 1 and June 7 the firm bought 1,550 BTC for $101.3 million at an average price of $65,332, boosting its reported reserve to 845,256 BTC and raising its USD cash reserve by $100 million to $1 billion. That acquisition — nearly 50 times the size of the 32 BTC sale — was funded in part by proceeds from its at-the-market share program and served both to add Bitcoin and rebuild cash buffers. Strategy’s dashboard now lists 845,256 BTC at an average acquisition cost of $75,680, keeping it the largest publicly disclosed corporate Bitcoin holder by a wide margin.
The episode crystallizes the tension between MicroStrategy’s public accumulation identity and the practical cash needs of running a corporation with recurring obligations. Preferred dividends create steady outflows, and Saylor’s response suggests the company may accept occasional, limited sales to meet such obligations while continuing to pursue net accumulation overall.
What to watch next: the June 30 dividend payments and how Strategy funds them — from cash reserves, capital markets, or further small BTC sales. For now, the larger June purchase signals Strategy remains a net accumulator, but the 32 BTC sale has altered some traders’ reading of the firm’s once-absolute “never sell” message.
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