Strategy sold 1,690 bitcoin between August 3 and August 9, and the coins left the balance sheet at an average of $64,262. That sits below the company's $75,385 cost basis. Every coin went out the door at a loss of roughly $11,000, and the $108.6 million it raised went straight into buying back STRC rather than more bitcoin.
STRC is Strategy's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock. It carries a $100 par value and pays a monthly dividend that the company keeps adjusting to pin the price near par. Lately the price has not cooperated. STRC changed hands around $95.55 before Monday's open, still under par, though a long way up from the $71.25 it touched in June.
Par is the whole game, and below it the tap shuts
Par is the whole game. When STRC trades at or above $100, Strategy can issue fresh shares through its at-the-market program and turn that cash into bitcoin. Below par, the channel closes. So the company sold 1,690 coins to prop up the vehicle that is supposed to fund coin purchases in the first place. The funding loop ran backward.
| STRC snapshot | Value |
|---|---|
| Par value | $100 |
| Price before Monday's open | $95.55 |
| June intraday low | $71.25 |
| Dividend at July 2025 listing | 9% |
| Current dividend | 12% |
| Ratchet trigger | below $95, plus 0.5%, permanent |
Each slip below $95 raises the bill, and it stays raised
The dividend is where the cost compounds. STRC started at 9% when it listed in July 2025 and now pays 12%. The mechanism is a ratchet: every time the stock trades below $95, the rate climbs half a point, and once it moves up it does not come back down even if the price recovers. Analysts have described the design as one with a finite number of cycles. Strategy also chose to split the payment into two distributions a month from July 15, which does nothing to lower the annual rate.
Defending par therefore costs twice. Once in bitcoin sold under cost, and again in a dividend that only ticks higher.
The reserve is deep. The stance has already moved.
Cash is not the problem. Strategy's dollar reserve sits at $4.65 billion, up from about $4 billion, roughly 2.7 years of preferred dividend coverage. The June buyback authorization was $1 billion and about $785 million of it is still open. What changed is the posture. The company paused bitcoin sales for nearly two and a half years after December 2022, restarted in late May, and has now moved around $429 million of it under a framework that permits up to $1.25 billion. Michael Saylor says Strategy "never had a 'never sell' policy" and still expects to be a net buyer, though prediction markets had spent months pricing an 82% chance he would sell.
The pace tells its own story. Strategy has now let go of 6,948 bitcoin in 2026, and the August batch was not a one-off scramble but the latest draw on a standing buyback line. Each sale is small against the treasury, yet each one funds the same job: keeping a preferred share close enough to $100 that the machine above it can keep running. A treasury built to absorb bitcoin is now spending bitcoin to hold its own plumbing together.
The pressure is not unique to Strategy. Another bitcoin treasury, Twenty One Capital, has watched its premium to net asset value collapse toward parity over the same stretch. Strategy still holds 840,447 bitcoin bought for $63.36 billion, so a 1,690-coin sale barely dents the pile. The number to watch is not the holdings. It is STRC's price, and whether the next dip under $95 forces the dividend up another notch.
