Michael Saylor built a reputation as Bitcoin’s most unrelenting advocate. He once declared on X, “You do not sell your Bitcoin.” That was October. By early May, the tone had shifted. On Strategy’s first-quarter earnings call, the executive chairman said the company would “probably sell some Bitcoin to fund a dividend just to inoculate the market.”
The remark landed like a thunderclap. Analysts paused. Bitcoin holders winced. Short sellers took notice. Yet Saylor later clarified the move wasn’t surrender. It was calculated. A way to jam the skeptics. The haters. Those betting against the software firm’s ever-growing Bitcoin hoard.
Strategy reported a $12.54 billion net loss for the quarter, driven largely by a $14.46 billion unrealized loss on its digital assets amid Bitcoin’s price slump. Revenues rose 11.9% to $124.3 million. The company held 818,334 BTC as of early May, acquired at an average cost of roughly $75,537. Market value stood near $64 billion. Year to date, it achieved a 9.4% BTC yield, a metric tracking growth in Bitcoin per share.
This yield matters. So does Bitcoin per share. Executives now emphasize both as key performance indicators. The goal? Increase Bitcoin holdings faster than diluted shares outstanding. Do that through smart capital raises, acquisitions, and yes, occasional sales when advantageous. Phong Le, Strategy’s president and CEO, put it plainly on the call. “We’re not going to sit back and just say, ‘We’ll never sell the bitcoin.’ We want to be net aggregators of bitcoin – increasing our total bitcoin, but more importantly, increasing our bitcoin per share because we think that is what is going to be most accretive long term for MSTR.”
Le added that the firm would consider selling Bitcoin to buy dollars or retire debt if the transaction boosts Bitcoin per share. The language marks a clear break from years of strict accumulation. Strategy has raised billions issuing equity and debt to buy more Bitcoin. It launched STRC, a preferred equity instrument offering yields backed by the Bitcoin treasury. That product scaled rapidly to over $13.5 billion outstanding. It delivered 23 consecutive distributions totaling more than $693 million.
Saylor framed the potential sales in familiar terms. He compared the approach to real estate developers. “If you bought land for $10,000 an acre, and you sold it at $100,000 an acre, and then you bought more land with profit … or if you sold $100,000 an acre to pay some interest expense on debt that you used to buy more land, nobody would say that’s bad for the price of real estate,” he said. Strategy operates like a Bitcoin development company. Sales become tools. Not signals of doubt.
The Fortune piece captured Saylor’s thinking in stark terms. In an interview, he described the comments as aimed at short sellers and Twitter trolls. “The haters… the skeptics and the short-sellers don’t recognize that we’re just selling a Bitcoin derivative, and we have the option to sell the Bitcoin,” he told the publication (Fortune). The narrative that Strategy must sell stock to meet obligations had taken root among critics. Demonstrating flexibility with Bitcoin holdings disrupts that story. It inoculates the market. Sends a message.
Short interest in Strategy stock has persisted even as the company amassed one of the largest corporate Bitcoin positions on record. Saylor has long mocked those who short Bitcoin or the stock. Recent X chatter shows his followers amplifying the point. Clips from the earnings call spread quickly. One post noted Saylor’s desire to “rip the wings off” short sellers betting the company must issue equity for dividends. The tactic echoes past squeezes. Control enough of the liquid supply and the math turns against bears.
Yet the first quarter numbers reveal pressure. Bitcoin’s price fell sharply earlier in the year. Strategy’s market capitalization sits around $63 billion, down from peaks above $100 billion in late 2024. Copycat firms that bought Bitcoin and later sold suffered worse. One saw its share price drop more than 99%. Saylor advised patience. No great business forms in less than four or five years of hard work. He gave them five years.
Analysts at JPMorgan project Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases could reach $30 billion for the full year if the current pace holds. The firm already added about 64,000 BTC in early 2026. It paused buys briefly ahead of the earnings release but signaled a return to normal activity. A U.S. dollar reserve of $2.25 billion provides buffer for obligations. That reserve, plus the ability to sell Bitcoin opportunistically, gives management options.
Saylor’s bigger vision extends far beyond one company’s treasury. He predicts Bitcoin could reach $10 million per coin as digital credit instruments draw global capital into the network. At a February conference, he outlined how a $300 trillion global credit market might shift toward Bitcoin-denominated products. STRC serves as an early example. It offers yield, stability, and tax advantages. Banks and traditional players have begun offering Bitcoin ETFs, trading, custody, and lending.
The earnings call highlighted success in a bear market. STRC saw strong demand, daily trading volume near $375 million, and volatility around 3%. Some $150 million sits in corporate treasuries. Another $270 million appears in DeFi protocols. Executives proposed increasing dividend frequency to semi-monthly to boost liquidity and price stability. The instrument carries a high Sharpe ratio. It extracts Bitcoin’s performance while engineering steadier returns.
But. The shift invites questions. Does occasional selling undermine the “never sell” purity that attracted so many followers? Saylor says no. The company remains a net buyer. Sales would be tactical. Used to fund dividends, retire debt, or build reserves when those actions increase Bitcoin per share. Real estate analogy again. Sell high. Buy more. Develop the asset.
CNBC reported the change as a meaningful evolution. From passive stockpiling to active balance sheet management (CNBC). The company no longer ties itself to an absolute rule. It pursues the metric that matters most to long-term shareholders: more Bitcoin exposure per share. That focus drove a 9.4% BTC yield in the first months of 2026 and a BTC gain of 63,410 coins.
Markets reacted. MSTR stock and Bitcoin dipped after hours on the earnings news but recovered with broader sentiment. Some observers saw the comments as theater for the shorts. Others viewed them as pragmatic evolution. Strategy now holds enough Bitcoin that even small sales could send signals. One billion dollars worth might move prices. Yet Saylor insists the core thesis stands. Bitcoin as superior money. Digital credit as the mechanism to pull in trillions.
Recent coverage reinforces the point. A Yahoo Finance segment discussed the tax benefits of Saylor’s selling strategy. Another from The Block noted sales might cover STRC dividends, with Bitcoin needing only modest annual appreciation to sustain obligations without touching common stock. JPMorgan’s projection of $30 billion in annual buys suggests accumulation continues at scale (CoinPaper reporting on JPMorgan analysis).
Skeptics remain. They point to the massive quarterly loss. The dependence on capital markets. The risk that sustained Bitcoin weakness forces harder choices. Saylor counters with history. Porsche’s 2008 squeeze on Volkswagen. Control the float and shorts suffer. Strategy holds a sizable portion of Bitcoin’s more liquid supply. Dormant coins and lost coins shrink the effective float further. The math favors the patient accumulator.
And so the strategy adapts. Never sell became sell when accretive. Haters become targets. Short sellers become counterparties in a larger game. Strategy raised $11.7 billion in capital so far this year. It converted that into more Bitcoin and a growing digital credit business. The firm now dominates preferred equity issuance backed by Bitcoin. Its balance sheet acts as both fortress and engine.
Phong Le captured the new posture best. “We will sell bitcoin when it’s advantageous to the company.” Simple. Direct. A far cry from absolute rules. The company will remain a net aggregator. It will chase higher Bitcoin per share. It will use every tool available, including selective sales, to do so. Saylor’s rhetorical pivot serves multiple purposes. It deters critics. It demonstrates flexibility. It keeps the focus on long-term value creation.
Bitcoin trades near $80,000 now. Far below its 2025 peak. Volatility persists. Yet corporate adoption talk grows. Banks integrate. Products proliferate. Strategy stands as the clearest public example of Bitcoin on the balance sheet done at scale. Its experiment with digital credit could influence how trillions flow in coming years. Sales or no sales, the hoard grows. The message sharpens. And the shorts keep watching.
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