MicroStrategy doubles down on its bitcoin bet

By Claudia AssisThe world's largest corporate holder of bitcoin falls short of quarterly expectations, howeverMicroStrategy Inc. said late Thursday it will continue to buy bitcoin and grow its stash of the cryptocurrency, as it missed Wall Street's quarterly expectations by a wide margin."Our capital-markets strategy continues to grow our bitcoin holdings while delivering superior shareholder value," Chief Executive Phong Le said.The company (MSTR), which also does business as Strategy, said that "with the strong momentum in the market" it increased a pair of its own metrics, raising its 2025 bitcoin-yield target to 25% and its 2025 bitcoin-gain target to $15 billion.MicroStrategy calculates bitcoin yield as a function of its bitcoin holdings and its shares outstanding, and calculates its bitcoin gain as the number of bitcoins (BTCUSD) it holds at the start of a period multiplied by the yield.In more traditional metrics, however, the company fell wide off the mark. First-quarter revenue dropped nearly 4% year on year to $111.1 million.It lost $16.49 a share, a much wider loss than the 31 cents a share in the first quarter of 2024.Analysts polled by FactSet expected the company to report a GAAP loss of 11 cents a share on sales of $117 million.MicroStrategy grew its cash and equivalents pile to $60.3 million as of the end of March, compared with $38.1 million as of Dec. 31.It said it added 301,335 bitcoins in the quarter, with bitcoin holdings reaching 553,555 bitcoins at a total cost of $37.90 billion, or $68,459 per bitcoin, as of Monday.The stock dipped 0.7% in after-hours trading.-Claudia AssisThis content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.