MicroStrategy Stock Jumps After Latest Bitcoin Purchase as Holdings Near 600,000 Tokens — Barrons.com
By Mackenzie TatananniMicroStrategy's latest cryptocurrency purchase puts a new milestone in sight. The world's largest corporate holder of Bitcoin could cross the 600,000-token mark as soon as next week.Between June 23 and June 29, the company, which does business as Strategy, snapped up 4,980 Bitcoins for an average purchase price of $106,801 each, or roughly $531.9 million in total.Shares climbed 4.7% at $402.07 on Monday even as the price of Bitcoin has been flat at $107,535 over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk.The latest all-cash transaction brought Strategy's total holdings to 597,325 digital tokens acquired for around $42.4 billion. Based on the current price, Strategy's holdings have a market value of around $64 billion.The company said it funded its latest purchases through the sale of stock under three different at-the-market offerings.Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer noted that the company's Bitcoin yield, which represents the change in the ratio of its holdings to total assumed shares outstanding from period to period, was 19.7% between Jan. 1 and June 29.As is customary, Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor — arguably Bitcoin's biggest cheerleader — alluded to the upcoming purchase in a social media post over the weekend."In 21 years, you'll wish you'd bought more," Saylor wrote Sunday in a post on X. The billionaire included a chart tracking the performance of Strategy's Bitcoin portfolio since late 2020, when the company first bought in.Strategy snapped up 245 Bitcoins between June 16 and June 22, a notably smaller purchase than usual. For reference, Strategy bought 10,100 Bitcoins in the period between June 9 and June 15. It isn't uncommon for the company to snap up thousands of Bitcoins in each go.While Strategy was founded as an enterprise software company, it's now viewed as a leveraged play on Bitcoin, offering investors exposure without having to own crypto themselves. The company has steadily been building up its Bitcoin hoard since August 2020, using the sale of stock and debt to fund its acquisitions.Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at [email protected] content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.