From early February to late April, Strategy (MSTR), formerly known as MicroStrategy, accumulated a total of 103,690 bitcoins, spending over $7.5 billion. The company now holds more than 818,000 bitcoins, accounting for approximately 3.9% of Bitcoin’s fixed supply cap of 21 million coins.
This purchasing pace means that Strategy bought about 0.5% of the maximum Bitcoin supply in just three months. For investors, the core question is: does this buying behavior represent structural bullish pressure, or is it introducing centralization risks?
Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases over the past three months are more than 2.5 times the amount mined during the same period. After Bitcoin’s halving in April 2024, only about 450 new bitcoins enter circulation each day.
The most striking element of this buying spree is Strategy’s newly launched Stretch (STRC) preferred stock. This is a perpetual preferred share with an annual dividend yield of up to 11.5%, backed by Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings and their liquidity. Investors buy Stretch shares for the unusually high yield, while Strategy uses the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin without diluting common shareholders’ equity – which had been one of its primary methods of financing Bitcoin acquisitions. In the first four months of 2026, Stretch funded approximately 77,000 bitcoins acquired by Strategy.
The current annual Bitcoin mining output is about 164,000 coins. Strategy’s buying pace is now roughly equivalent to this production level. When combined with inflows into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the competitive pressure on available Bitcoin supply cannot be ignored.
The most direct consequence of Strategy’s large-scale buying is that, coupled with its new financing instruments, Bitcoin prices will face sustained buy-side pressure, thereby pushing prices higher.
Understanding the value of Bitcoin begins with recognizing its scarcity. Strategy’s continued hoarding has indeed significantly tightened the circulating supply. But it has also concentrated a worrisome degree of control onto a single company’s balance sheet – which runs counter to Bitcoin’s ethos of decentralization and avoiding any form of concentrated influence, while also introducing risks for Bitcoin holders.
If Bitcoin prices continue to fall, it could drag down Strategy’s stock price, potentially triggering a cascade of forced selling. The company’s annual dividend obligation of $1.2 billion for Stretch makes the problem more acute. Strategy currently holds a cash reserve sufficient for about 30 months of payments, but if market conditions prevent it from issuing new shares to raise funds, that buffer would quickly be depleted. In a worst-case scenario, Strategy’s financial engineering, combined with its massive holdings, could make future Bitcoin downturns even more severe.
Even so, this would not undermine Bitcoin’s long-term scarcity logic. Therefore, if Strategy were indeed forced to become a seller of Bitcoin, the resulting price drop could represent an excellent buying opportunity for investors who can tolerate the risk.
