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Strategy stock slides to 52‑week lows, preferred shares trade 26% below par and Bitcoin drops to $58k, sparking cash‑flow concerns for the bitcoin‑focused
Strategy’s common stock and its variable‑rate perpetual preferred, STRC, both sank to 52‑week lows on Friday as Bitcoin slipped to $58,000, testing the company’s capital‑raising model that hinges on issuing equity or preferred instruments at a premium to the underlying bitcoin value【1】.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Stock price | ~ $82 (≈ 82% below peak) |
| Preferred price | $74 (26% discount to $100 par) |
| Bitcoin price | $58,000 (first breach since Oct 2024) |
| Catalyst | Bitcoin price drop and preferred discount eroding capital‑raising ability |
The discount on STRC means the mechanism that funds new bitcoin purchases—issuing preferred shares above par—has effectively stalled. When preferred shares trade below their $100 par value, the company cannot raise capital on favorable terms, tightening cash flow just as dividend obligations on its preferred suite have ballooned from $300 million at the start of 2026 to $1.2 billion—a four‑fold increase in six months【1】. Cash reserves have fallen 38% this year, compressing dividend coverage from over seven years to roughly 14 months【1】.
Strategy still holds roughly 847,000 bitcoin at an average cost of $75,680 per coin, creating a paper loss of more than $17,000 per bitcoin at current prices and pushing total paper losses above $14 billion【1】. The newly launched MSTR‑BTC dashboard reports 843,775 bitcoin valued at $54.88 billion based on a $65,035 bitcoin price, with net reserves of $35.88 billion and an mNAV of 1.00×【2】. However, enterprise mNAV—which incorporates total debt and preferred stock—dropped below 1.0 for the first time, closing at 0.99, signaling that the full economic cost of the capital structure now exceeds the value of its bitcoin assets【3】.
MSTR’s shares have shed about 25% over five trading days leading into Friday and extended the decline in pre‑market trading as the bitcoin slide appeared to stall【1】. The company’s first bitcoin sale in four years—32 BTC at an average of $77,135—was framed as a liquidity move but failed to reassure investors, who saw the sale as evidence of cash strain【1】. Recent purchases have slowed dramatically, with only 520 bitcoin bought in the latest period and $300 million of a $335.5 million equity raise held in cash rather than deployed into bitcoin【1】.
The twin pressures of a discounted preferred market and a falling bitcoin price have forced Strategy into a cash‑tight position, raising questions about its ability to sustain the bitcoin‑treasury model without new capital or a shift in dividend policy.
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AI-assisted synthesis by the TrendWatcher Editorial Desk · sourced from 3 outlets · Aug 4, 2026 · How we report
As of the August 2 filing, MicroStrategy holds 842,138 Bitcoin.
The sale was made to cover a $400.7 million quarterly dividend obligation on its preferred shares and to repurchase those shares at a discount.
It now tracks Bitcoin’s 200‑week moving average and the premium of the current price relative to that average.
Since the metric became available, Bitcoin has traded above the 200‑week moving average roughly 92 % of the time, and tests of this level have often coincided with market bottoms.
Saylor said the company expects to remain a net buyer of Bitcoin over time, even though there has been no net buying in the recent ten‑week period.