Corporate Bitcoin buying has resumed, with Strategy purchasing more than $21 million (£15.7 million) of the cryptocurrency last week and taking its total holdings to about $70 billion. The company, led by billionaire Michael Saylor, financed the acquisition through share sales and $500,000 in cash.
Strategy sold more than 125,000 shares of its common stock to fund the purchase. Separately, it spent about $192 million repurchasing almost two million STRC shares, a form of preferred stock that makes regular payments to investors.
The transaction is Strategy’s fifth Bitcoin purchase since August, extending its return to accumulating the cryptocurrency after selling parts of its holdings during the market downturn.
Bitcoin has traded above $77,000 since breaking out of a prolonged period of subdued trading in mid-August. It stood at about $82,600 on Monday morning, having fallen from a peak of $126,000 last October to a low of $58,000 in June.
Strategy holds about 4% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply. During the slump, it sold portions of its stockpile on four occasions, but halted those sales as the cryptocurrency recovered.
Companies return to Bitcoin buying
Other businesses have also begun adding digital assets to their balance sheets. Strive, the asset manager co-founded by billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, announced earlier this month that it had bought $169 million worth of Bitcoin, or 2,000 tokens, taking its holdings to about $2.4 billion.
Robinhood, the cryptocurrency trading platform led by chief executive Vlad Tenev, has disclosed a $25 million Bitcoin investment for its own balance sheet.
Metaplanet, the Japanese investment firm described as the world’s second-largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company, said it sold 10,000 Bitcoin and bought 11,000 during the third quarter. The move was intended to show credit markets that it could convert its holdings into cash when required.
The renewed appetite for digital assets has extended beyond Bitcoin. Bitmine, a Bitcoin miner that has become an Ethereum treasury company, said this month that it had added about $41 million worth of Ether to its reserves, taking its holdings to roughly six million tokens, or almost 5% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply.
The buying has returned as Bitcoin’s recovery raises expectations of further gains. The cryptocurrency has remained resilient despite recent US interest rate rises and renewed tensions in the Middle East.
