MicroStrategy Holds 1% of Total Bitcoin Supply After $600 Million Purchase

MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 9,245 Bitcoin, co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said on Tuesday. The latest purchase filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brings the total held by the business analytics firm to 214,245 BTC, worth around $13.6 billion—constituting over 1% of the total supply of the top cryptocurrency.

Even before the purchase, MicroStrategy held more Bitcoin, around 205,000 BTC, than its competitors.

“MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 9,245 BTC for $623.0M using proceeds from convertible notes and excess cash for $67,382 per Bitcoin,” Saylor wrote on Twitter. “As of 3/18/24, $MSTR holds 214,246 $BTC acquired for $7.53B at an average price of $35,160 per Bitcoin.”

Last week, Saylor announced that MicroStrategy would sell over $500 million in convertible senior notes to institutional investors to buy more Bitcoin.

Souring Saylor's bullish announcement was a Bitcoin flash crash on the Bitmex exchange around the same time Saylor posted on Twitter. Bitcoin’s price drop brought the amount of MicroStrategy’s latest purchase to around $581.2 million, down 6.71% from the $623 million Saylor initially announced.

Bitcoin crashed 80% on the Bitmex cryptocurrency exchange early Tuesday to below $9,000. The flash crash only lasted a few minutes, and Bitcoin bounced back to $67,000 ten minutes after the crash. BitMex said the firm is investigating the incident.

The price of Bitcoin is $65,453 as of writing, according to CoinGecko data.

While Saylor did not address the flash crash, the Bitcoin bull has repeatedly said that MicroStrategy will not sell its holdings, calling the digital asset “the exit strategy.”

“Bitcoin is the exit strategy, it is the strongest asset, so what we see right now is that Bitcoin just emerges as a trillion-dollar asset class. And it's alongside names like Apple, Google and Microsoft,” Saylor told Bloomberg in February. “That being the case, there's just no reason to sell the winner to buy the losers.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.