Strategy Bought 950 BTC. BTC/Share Rose 0.11% While STRC Buybacks Continued.

Bitcoin purchases restarted

Strategy bought 950 BTC for approximately $75.7 million between September 14 and September 20, at an average price of $79,670 per bitcoin, including fees and expenses. That brought total holdings to 846,000 BTC.

The more interesting detail is how the purchase was funded. Strategy said the Bitcoin came from USD Cash, and it reported no sales under its at-the-market programs during the period.

That matters for BTC/share. Buying more Bitcoin does not automatically make the common shareholder better off on a per-share basis if the denominator grows faster. This week, the numerator increased and the diluted share count was essentially flat.

BTC/share increased approximately 0.11%

Strategy's September 20 share table reports 420.507 million basic shares and 450.108 million Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding, or ADSO. Compared with our September 13 snapshot, basic shares increased only slightly while ADSO declined by approximately 4,000 shares.

The small ADSO decline was not an MSTR buyback. Basic shares rose by about 10,000, while options outstanding fell by about 10,000 and unvested RSU/PSU awards fell by about 4,000; the assumed convert/preferred component was unchanged, leaving ADSO down roughly 4,000 shares overall. The roughly +10,000 basic / −10,000 options pairing is consistent with option exercises, which would mostly move shares from one ADSO bucket into another rather than change ADSO itself.

The RSU/PSU movement is more telling. Ordinary RSU vesting would simply move shares from the unvested-award bucket into basic shares and would not reduce ADSO. That makes the roughly 4,000-share net decline in the combined RSU/PSU line more consistent with forfeitures, cancellations or another award adjustment than simple vesting. Strategy's share table is reported in thousands, so the underlying movements may not have been exactly 10,000 and 4,000 shares.

So this was not a huge BTC/share week, but it was cleanly accretive. Bitcoin holdings increased about 0.112%, ADSO was essentially unchanged, and ADSO BTC/share increased about 0.113%.

That is a very different outcome from periods when common issuance grew faster than the Bitcoin balance. With no ATM sales this week, almost all of the growth in Bitcoin holdings carried through to gross BTC/share.

Strategy still spent much more on STRC

The Bitcoin purchase was only one part of the week's capital allocation. Strategy also repurchased 1,771,238 STRC shares for $174.0 million.

Put the two uses of USD Cash next to each other:

Strategy spent approximately 2.3 times as much cash repurchasing STRC as it did acquiring Bitcoin. Bitcoin purchases have restarted, but the company is still committing substantially more capital to reducing the preferred stack.

What the STRC buyback accomplished

At STRC's $100 stated amount, the 1,771,238 shares repurchased represent approximately $177.1 million of preferred stated value. Strategy paid about $98.24 per share, roughly 1.8% below stated amount.

At STRC's current 12% annualized dividend rate, retiring those shares also removes approximately $21.3 million of annualized regular dividends.

That is economically different from buying Bitcoin. A Bitcoin purchase directly increases the numerator in BTC/share. An STRC repurchase does not. Instead, it uses cash to reduce a senior preferred claim and the associated dividend requirement.

That distinction is why we track the preferred stack separately from gross BTC/share. Our preferred-financing guide explains the other side of the same mechanism: preferred issuance can finance Bitcoin without immediate common dilution, but it creates senior claims and dividend costs that matter later.

Three reporting periods, nearly $490 million of STRC repurchases

This is no longer an isolated transaction. Across the last three reporting periods, Strategy has repurchased approximately 5.00 million STRC shares for $489.6 million.

Those repurchases retired approximately $500.3 million of STRC stated amount. At a 12% annualized dividend rate, the associated dividend run rate is roughly $60.0 million lower.

Over those same three reporting periods, the 950 BTC purchased this week are the only additional Bitcoin acquired. That makes the capital-allocation shift hard to miss.

Cash balances moved almost exactly as expected

Strategy reported $1.05 billion of USD Cash at September 20, down from approximately $1.30 billion a week earlier.

The roughly $250 million decline is consistent with the $249.7 million the company says it used for Bitcoin purchases and STRC repurchases, allowing for the rounded cash balances in the filing.

The separate USD Reserve declined from $5.10 billion to $5.04 billion. Strategy said it used $57.4 million from the reserve during the period to pay preferred dividends and interest on outstanding debt.

The distinction remains important: USD Cash is the more flexible pool Strategy can deploy for Bitcoin and capital management, while the USD Reserve is intended to support preferred dividends and debt interest.

STRC keeps getting smaller

After this week's repurchases, we calculate approximately 93.16 million STRC shares remaining outstanding, down from about 94.93 million a week earlier.

At $100 of stated amount per share, that represents approximately $9.32 billion of STRC stated value. At the current 12% rate, the corresponding annualized regular dividend obligation is approximately $1.12 billion.

Strategy also reported $875.1 million of remaining authorization under its digital credit securities repurchase program, while its separate MSTR common-stock repurchase authorization remains at $1.0 billion.

What we're watching next

The capital-allocation question is getting more interesting. The previous two reporting periods were dominated by STRC repurchases with no additional Bitcoin. This week Strategy did both.

The 950 BTC purchase was small relative to an 846,000 BTC treasury, but with no ATM issuance it still produced approximately 0.11% BTC/share accretion. At the same time, Strategy continued putting considerably more cash toward STRC.

The next filing should tell us whether Bitcoin buying continues, whether the ATM remains quiet, and how aggressively Strategy keeps repurchasing STRC as the preferred trades near its $100 stated amount.

For this reporting period, the shareholder result is straightforward: Strategy added 950 BTC without issuing ATM shares, BTC/share increased approximately 0.11%, and another $174 million went toward reducing the STRC preferred stack.