Strategy Inc. CEO Vuong Lu pushed back somewhat on Tuesday against the wave of criticism that followed the company’s first bitcoin sale since 2022, He says On CNBC’s Power Lunch, he said the move was a deliberate, limited exercise designed to signal operational flexibility — not a philosophical reversal.
“We wanted to vaccinate the market and we wanted to test our operations,” Lu said in what the network described as a first-time interview. “We’ve learned that everything works.”
Between May 26 and May 31, strategy Sold 32 Bitcoins for approximately $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per coin — a transaction that, although representing just 0.004% of the company’s total holdings, sparked a huge market reaction and reignited the debate over whether Michael Saylor’s famous “never sell” principle had been abandoned.
Law was careful to frame the disposal in terms of balance sheet management rather than condemnation. He cited three reasons for the sale: proving that the strategy could sell when necessary, confirming that the internal systems for executing Bitcoin disposals were fully functional, and creating opportunities to capture tax losses on acquired Bitcoin on a lower cost basis – the company bought Bitcoin at prices ranging from $10,000 to $125,000 per coin.
Importantly, he said the sale was not driven by financial distress. “We didn’t need to sell our bitcoin to meet our profits,” Lu said. “We are able to do this through other capital raising activities.” The proceeds from the sale were directed towards distributions on the company’s shares STRC Perpetual preferred stock.
Lu also noted that Strategy remained a net buyer: in total, the company bought roughly 1,500 bitcoins during the same period it sold the 32 coins.
The most telling exchange came when the host pressed Le about the backlash from investors who believed the strategy had pledged to never liquidate its bitcoin reserves. Lu admitted frustration but did not apologize.
“We have a set of components that we have to be able to respond to,” he said, listing common shareholders, preferred shareholders, debt holders, and bitcoin holders. “When it makes sense for our common shareholders to sell our bitcoin, we will do so.”
Lu pointed out that the loudest critics are retail investors and “crypto anarchists” who are ideologically committed to sticking around — not the institutional shareholders with whom the company interacts directly.
“The institutional shareholders we talked to don’t seem to be concerned about that,” he said.
This wasn’t Strategy’s first Bitcoin dive. In December 2022, the company Sold 704 bitcoins at $16,776 per coin and bought back 810 bitcoins two days later — a tax loss-taking maneuver that took advantage of the lack of a rule to launder the sale of cryptocurrencies.
David Zervos, chief market strategist at Jeffreys, who joined Lu in the group, asked about the big picture around Bitcoin, pointing to weakness across traditional safe-haven assets. Lu acknowledged broader headwinds, pointing to three macro forces weighing on Bitcoin: uncertainty about the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path, two ongoing world wars, and a lack of regulatory clarity from Congress on pending cryptocurrency legislation.
However, Lu remained optimistic about Bitcoin’s long-term thesis.
“I think Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation. I think Bitcoin is a hedge against big government,” he said, adding that the current environment — potentially a cyclical downturn — mirrors the roughly 75% decline seen in May 2022, four years ago.
Bitcoin Price and Stock Strategy Under Pressure
The market, at the moment, is less optimistic. Bitcoin was trading at around $61,600 on June 10, 2026 — down more than 40% from its all-time high of $126,198 reached in October 2025. The sell-off deepened after the strategy announcement coincided with record ETF spot cash flows estimated at between $2.8 billion and $3.5 billion, leading to $1.8 billion in forced liquidations in a day. One.
MSTR shares have been caught in the same downward pull, trading near $117-$127 as of this week — down roughly 67% from their 52-week high of $457.
strategy ever since It has been resumed Buy, acquiring 1,550 Bitcoin at an average price of US$65,332 between June 1 and June 7 in a move that analysts described as an attempt to restore market confidence.
As of late May, the company owned 845,256 bitcoins at a total cost of about $63.97 billion.
