Strategy buys more Bitcoin—$264 million of it—even as Bitcoin slumps to $87,000
Despite the current downturn for crypto, Strategy added even more Bitcoin to its collection. The company bought more than 2,900 Bitcoin last week, bringing its total to over 712,000, according to an X post by co-founder Michael Saylor. The move follows a more than $2 billion purchase earlier this month.
Strategy is the first and biggest digital asset treasury, or a type of company that acquires and holds onto large amounts of crypto. Saylor’s company began investing in Bitcoin in 2020 and now holds more than 3% of the total supply. This business model has confronted major challenges in the past few months, as the largest cryptocurrency has plummeted since its all-time high in October. Bitcoin is worth about $87,000, down about 31% since then, according to Binance.
One analyst views Saylor’s purchase as expected, considering the company’s business strategy, which is to continually amass Bitcoin on the theory it will appreciate in the long term, and to time purchases to coincide with market dips.
“It’s not surprising for me to see that they’re really aggressively continuing to purchase [Bitcoin]”, said Nathan Schmidt, an analyst at CFRA Research. “It is certainly the playbook for them these days.”
Bitcoin’s fall from its all-time high of about $126,000 in October was caused in part by a flash crash in the fall, where crypto traders lost more than $19 billion in their positions. Misfortunes for digital assets have only continued this calendar year. The sector dipped as tensions mounted between the U.S. and Europe over Greenland. In addition, major regulatory legislation, referred to as the Clarity Act, has stalled as major figures in the crypto industry spar over its details.
The major cryptocurrency isn’t the only one to suffer losses, as altcoins are down as well. Ethereum is down 30% in the last three months to its current price of $2,899, and Solana is down more than 38% to its price of about $124, according to Binance.
Crypto’s dip has led to disastrous returns for digital asset treasuries like Strategy. Saylor’s company stock is down about 64% since July to its current price of about $160.
Schmidt, the analyst from CFRA Research, argues that the biggest risk to Strategy is long-term declines in the value of Bitcoin. He says that the company could survive such a dip in the next few years because of its liquidity, but that over time the company would be in trouble.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com