Billionaire Michael Saylor Announces $623 Million Bitcoin Purchase, MicroStrategy Now Owns Over 1% of Total Supply
MicroStrategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin (BTC), has acquired another 9,245 coins at an average price of $67,382.
The purchase brings the firm’s holdings up to 214,246 BTC – officially over 1% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist.
Michael Saylor Buys More Bitcoin
As noted by MicroStrategy co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor, the company’s total Bitcoin book cost is now $7.53 billion, at an average purchase price of $35,160 per coin.
This figure is roughly corroborated by saylortracker.com, which tracks the performance of MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin investment over time based on Saylor’s publicly declared Bitcoin purchases.
MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 9,245 BTC for ~$623.0M using proceeds from convertible notes & excess cash for ~$67,382 per #bitcoin. As of 3/18/24, $MSTR hodls 214,246 $BTC acquired for ~$7.53B at average price of $35,160 per bitcoin. https://t.co/oeYJGgiuy0
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) March 19, 2024
The recent purchase was well above MicroStrategy’s existing book cost, and also above Bitcoin’s current market price, which fell 6% on Tuesday to $63,101.
Nevertheless, the company’s overall investment is still 80% in the green, boasting $6.1 billion in unrealized profit.
According to Saylor, however, the company doesn’t plan to realize any profit for a very long time – if ever.
“I would encourage people to think of [Bitcoin] as digital property – a billion-dollar building in cyberspace,” he told CNBC in a recent interview. “Hold it for 100 years.”
The executive added that Bitcoin will “eat gold” in terms of market share, and that Bitcoin spot ETFs will soon attain the size of gold ETFs.
“It’s competing with risk assets as a long-term hold, and it’s competing with you buying an Airbnb as a retirement income source if you’re a middle-class person,” he said.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) Versus Bitcoin
The recent buy follows MicroStrategy’s completion of a $603.75 million offering of convertible notes, which was announced last week. The notes come with 0.875% coupon, and are due for repayment in 2031.
Earlier this month, the company bought over $821.7 million in BTC after raising $700 million though convertible notes, which boasted an even lower coupon of 0.625%.
Bullish investors in the company’s stock, MSTR, tout its access to cheap debt as an advantage over buying real BTC, or shares of a Bitcoin ETF. It also boasts a profitable software business, allowing it to acquire more BTC over time and increase investors’ BTC per share.
Shares in MSTR are up 80% year to date, while BTC is up 41% over the same timeframe. Over the past five days, however, MSTR is down 24%.
