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The strategy has resurfaced as a clear treasury offer to buy BTC, but with a completely different funding backdrop compared to 2024-2025.
At the end of December, Strategy raised funds but barely distributed them in BTC. From December 29 to 31, it sold 1,255,911 shares of MSTR stock for $195.9 million in net proceeds, but only bought 3 bitcoins. In early January, publishing resumed: the period from January 1 to 4 saw another 735,000 shares sold for a net $116.3 million, and 1,283 BTC purchased for $116 million ($90,391 average per BTC), bringing holdings to 673,783 BTC.
The bigger signal lies in the financing background. In 2024 through early 2025, Strategy financed itself inexpensively through convertible debt (cash coupons ranging from 0.625% to 2.25%, then multiple conversions at 0%). This playbook works best when MSTR is trading at a higher price than Bitcoin NAV (mNAV > 1) due to a stock option.
However, by mid-to-late 2025, this premium has compressed and flipped to a discount (mNAV < 1), making equity-linked financing more difficult and co-issuance resulting in mechanical BTC-per-share dilution. As a result, financing has shifted toward higher cash cost preferreds, which are often issued at less than face value, resulting in approximately 10% to 12.5% of the actual cash cost being printed on the proceeds. The STRC payout rate was increased from 9% (August 2025) to 11.0% (January 2026) to keep the channel open.
Interestingly, the strategy still funds purchases through ATM co-issuance even at a mNAV discount, accepting short-term dilution to continue accumulation and maintain liquidity. When mNAV is less than 1 and marginal financing costs are in the double digits, scaling purchases becomes more diluted and more expensive. This makes the strategy a less reliable buyer and less price determinant than previous annuity systems. It will remain important as an indicator of sentiment, but unless the premium reopens, its flow is more likely to be cross-sections than a sustained driver of the bar.
In short, the 2025 margin bid was a two-horse race: spot and strategic ETFs. On the cumulative chart, the strategy’s cumulative purchases tracked in the same range as the ETFs throughout most of the year, meaning the strategy was comparable in flow effect to the ETF pool at points.
The setting for 2026 looks materially weaker. With mNAV compression and funding shifting towards double-digit preferred costs as well as diluted ATM co-issuance, it becomes difficult to scale Strategy’s offering without exacerbating BTC per share dilution. The strategy is still a sentiment indicator, but buying pressure should be more subdued and occasional, leaving ETF flows and broader crypto risk appetite as the most reliable price-determining forces.
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