Since December 2022, has Strategy's first sale of Bitcoin caused the flywheel of DAT to come to a complete stop?

Written by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

On June 1, Strategy submitted an 8-K form to the SEC, disclosing the sale of 32 Bitcoins at an average price of $77,135 between May 26 and 31, totaling about $2.5 million. After the sale, the company still holds 843,706 BTC at a total cost of $6.387 billion, with an average price of $75,699.

The 32 Bitcoins account for 0.004% of the total holdings, and the $2.5 million is equivalent to an average buying amount for Strategy of one and a half days over the past 12 months. From a financial perspective, this transaction is almost insignificant. However, its implications are much greater than the amount realized; since first buying Bitcoin in August 2020, Strategy has only sold once before in December 2022, liquidating 704 BTC for $11.8 million at an average price of $16,776, intended to create a tax loss (tax-loss harvesting), and two days later, bought back 810 at a lower price. That sale was essentially a tax maneuver, not a genuine reduction in holdings.

But this time is different; the $2.5 million is explicitly designated to pay preferred stock dividends, and Strategy has no plans to buy back.

The Dividend Bill Begins to Mature

Starting in early 2025, Strategy intensely issued preferred shares, with STRK at an annual interest rate of 8%, STRF at 10%, STRD at 10%, and STRC at 11.5%. Collectively, the company has thus far paid over $693 million in dividends.

The logic behind these preferred shares is that investors give money to Strategy, which uses it to buy Bitcoin, then pays fixed-rate dividends from cash reserves and operational income. If Bitcoin rises, the mNAV premium expands, allowing Strategy to continue issuing new shares for financing. If Bitcoin declines or moves sideways, the dividend obligation does not disappear, but the financing window narrows.

The pace at which MicroStrategy is accumulating Bitcoin

In December 2025, Strategy set aside a cash reserve of $2.25 billion exclusively for covering dividends and debt repayments, which at the then-current rate could last about 30 months. However, by May 31, 2026, this reserve had dropped to $900 million, consuming $1.35 billion over six months.

During the Q1 earnings call, Strategy CEO Phong Le first publicly listed "disciplined sale of Bitcoin" as one of the capital management tools. At the time, not many paid attention to this statement; looking back now, it was a precursor to the sale of 32 BTC.

Saylor tweeted "Never sell your Bitcoin" on February 2, 2025, which was widely retweeted after the 8-K disclosure. He later posted only about STRC's product positioning, stating that Strategy's goal is to make STRC the best credit instrument in the world, completely avoiding the topic of selling coins.

On the day of the event, MSTR's stock price dropped about 6%. Mizuho maintained a buy rating but lowered its target price from $320 to $265. Most analysts believe the $2.5 million sale has no substantial financial impact, but the core significance of this event lies in the signal it sends, opening a possibility; if cash reserves continue to deplete while dividend obligations remain unchanged, future sale scales may not stop at 32 BTC.

A $100 Million Word Game on Polymarket

Strategy's timing of sale simultaneously ignited a prediction market on Polymarket.

The question in this market was whether Strategy would sell Bitcoin before May 31. The cumulative trading volume has exceeded $111 million. The 8-K document shows transactions occurred between May 26 and 31, with the time stamp on the document itself being "4:00 PM EST May 31, 2026." But the 8-K was submitted to the SEC only on June 1, after the deadline had passed, the public only learning about this afterward.

Those who bought Yes argue that the transaction occurred before the deadline, and the 8-K explicitly states May 31; those who bought No argue that there was no public information confirming a sale occurred before the deadline, so according to the rules, it should be judged No. After two No proposals were challenged, the dispute escalated to UMA's token voting arbitration.

Polymarket later added a line to the page stating, "There has been no confirmation from MSTR, on-chain data, or reliable reports that Strategy sold Bitcoin within the specified timeframe of the market. Confirmation obtained outside the specified timeframe does not meet the requirements."

Behind this dispute lies a deeper issue with Polymarket's arbitration mechanism. A Wall Street Journal survey in May found that in most controversial markets on Polymarket, over half of the UMA voting rights are concentrated in the ten largest wallets, and about 60% of active voters can be traced back to Polymarket accounts, with approximately one in five controversies involving voters simultaneously holding positions in adjudicated contracts. Since 2026, Polymarket has produced more than 1,150 controversial markets, exceeding the total from the entirety of 2025.

Not Just Strategy Selling, Bitcoin Drops Below $72,000

Strategy's 8-K disclosure coincided with an already weak market environment, as Bitcoin fell below $72,000 on June 1, reaching its lowest level since April 13. CoinShares data indicates a net outflow of $1.67 billion from digital asset investment products last week, marking the second-largest single-week outflow in 2026. Throughout May, the net outflow from Bitcoin spot ETFs totaled $2.3 billion, the largest monthly outflow of the year. The scale of digital asset management has fallen to about $141 billion, the lowest point since the beginning of the year.

Strategy sold 32 Bitcoins, but it was not the first Bitcoin treasury company to take action. Q1 data shows that selling has become a collective behavior. MARA Holdings sold 15,133 BTC from March 4 to 25, cashing out approximately $1.1 billion, most of which was used for repaying convertible bonds due in 2030 and 2031. Riot Platforms sold 3,778 BTC during the same period, cashing out $289.5 million, reducing holdings from 19,223 to 15,680, a decline of 18%. David Bailey's Nakamoto Holdings sold 284 BTC in March, accounting for about 5% of its holdings. Empery Digital sold 370 BTC in April to repay loans. Genius Group sold its last 84 BTC to repay $8.5 million in debt.

Only MARA, Riot, and Nakamoto collectively sold over 19,000 BTC in Q1. On-chain data from CryptoQuant shows that by the end of March, the apparent demand for Bitcoin had plummeted to negative 63,000 BTC, indicating a deep contraction in the market and significantly stronger selling pressure than buying.

Some companies have not only sold coins but have also directly abandoned the treasury model. Forum Markets (formerly known as ETHZilla) cleared about $114 million worth of ETH at the beginning of the year, shifting to tokenized business. VivoPower, originally planning to establish an XRP treasury, transformed in February to focus on data centers and AI infrastructure, liquidating all XRP holdings.

On May 28, French semiconductor company Sequans Communications confirmed it has fully repaid its convertible bonds by selling its Bitcoin holdings and plans to gradually monetize the remaining 658 Bitcoins. The peak of the company’s Bitcoin holdings reached 3,234 BTC at one point.

Sequans had previously claimed it aimed to hold over 3,000 Bitcoins as long-term reserve assets. The so-called "long-term," ultimately lasted less than a year. The company's stock (ticker SQNS) has dropped 77% this year, with a cumulative five-year decline of as high as 97%.

The business model of Bitcoin treasury companies was validated during the rising cycle in the second half of 2025, where rising coin prices pushed the mNAV premium higher, enabling companies to issue new shares or convertible bonds for financing to buy coins, further boosting coin prices and premiums, creating a positive cycle. After the market peaked in October last year, this flywheel reversed. Falling coin prices compressed premiums, the financing window narrowed, and obligations for dividends and debt repayments wouldn’t decrease due to falling prices, making selling coins the most direct source of liquidity. According to Bitwise statistics, as of the end of Q1, listed companies collectively held about 1.15 million BTC, accounting for 5.47% of the total supply. This volume itself constitutes a risk; if multiple treasury companies are forced to liquidate during the same time window, they are both the largest buyers of Bitcoin and can become a concentrated source of selling pressure.

Currently, few companies are still buying; Strive accumulated about 1,944 BTC in May, spending about $150 million, while Metaplanet bought 5,075 BTC in early April. Strategy itself was still buying over 25,000 BTC in May, worth over $2 billion.

Spending $2 billion on purchases while taking $2.5 million out for dividends indicates that Strategy is still far from a liquidity crisis. Yet the significance of the 32 BTC sale is that even the largest hoarder of coins has begun to acknowledge that selling is an option in the toolbox.