Strategy Hit 848,000 BTC, Then Spent Six Times More Buying Back Its Own Preferred Stock

Strategy's bitcoin treasury just landed on the roundest number in corporate history: exactly 848,000 BTC.

The company bought 334 bitcoin between October 1 and October 4 for $28.7 million, according to a Form 8-K filed October 5. That works out to about $85,838.80 per coin, well above its lifetime average of $75,440.70.

4% of every bitcoin that will ever exist

At 848,000 coins, Strategy controls more than 4% of bitcoin's 21 million supply cap. The entire position carries a cost basis of roughly $63.97 billion.

The same filing revealed a third-quarter gain on digital assets of $20.91 billion, with a carrying value of $70.82 billion at the end of September. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor summarised it in a post on X, flagging the 334 BTC purchase, $176 million of STRC repurchased, and $5.7 billion in USD assets on hand.

The buyback that dwarfed the buy

Strategy spent about $176.3 million repurchasing 1.77 million STRC preferred shares in that same week, roughly six times what it spent on bitcoin.

That is not a sign that Saylor stopped accumulating. STRC traded below its $100 par value through the summer, which makes issuing the preferred stock an expensive way to raise money. So the company leaned on its equity ATM instead, selling 92,894 MSTR shares for $15.7 million and pulling another $13 million from cash reserves to pay for the coins.

Why it matters if you hold BTC

Strategy is no longer just a buyer. It is a standing bid that runs on capital markets, so its pace now depends on how well its preferred stock trades.

• Three straight weekly buys after a summer pause: 950 BTC, then 1,665 BTC, then 334 BTC
• The STRC repurchase programme was doubled from $1 billion to $2 billion on September 8
• Every MSTR share sold through the ATM turns dilution into supply that never comes back to market

Watch STRC's price against its $100 par value. If it recovers, the cheap funding engine reopens and the weekly buys can scale back up. If it stays broken, expect more weeks where the buyback outruns the bitcoin purchase.