Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), the largest public holder of Bitcoin, returned to buying this week, acquiring 520 Bitcoin worth approximately $34.9 million as the cryptocurrency briefly reclaimed the $65,000 price level.
The company simultaneously raised more than $335 million by issuing additional common stock, a move that boosted its cash reserves to cover 9.8 months of preferred dividends, up from just seven months prior.
Despite the improvement, Strategy’s cash position remains well short of its stated goal of maintaining two years of dividend coverage, leaving investors watching closely for further capital-raising activity.
Strategy’s preferred stock, STRC, recovered to $89 after falling as low as $83 on Thursday, though it remains well below its $100 par value, a gap that signals market skepticism about the company’s ability to sustain its perpetual dividend.
CEO Phong Le addressed the pressure on STRC directly, telling Coinage: “STRC has been around for 10 months. Bitcoin has been around for almost 18 years. Bitcoin is getting into adulthood. STRC is still very much not even a toddler. It’s an infant.”
Le added: “So we’ll get the product to grow up, mature and to trade around $100. And I feel reasonably confident that we can do that.”
Strategy is now exploring a shift from monthly to semi-monthly dividend payouts, a change intended to make STRC a more attractive product to investors ahead of the next ex-dividend date on June 30.
Without renewed buying interest in STRC, Strategy loses one of its primary tools for raising fresh capital, potentially forcing it to sell additional Bitcoin or continue issuing MSTR common shares, which are down 30% year-to-date.
According to Fundstrat’s Sean Farrell, Bitcoin could still fall as low as $48,000 before the market believes the worst of the selloff has passed, with further clarity expected by the end of the month.
Broader market sentiment is also being tested by uncertainty over whether the Iran War ceasefire will hold, adding a geopolitical dimension to an already fragile crypto recovery.
On the Ethereum side, Tom Lee’s BitMine disclosed another purchase of 52,000 ETH this week and raised roughly $273 million through the launch of its own preferred stock, BMNP, which will initially pay a 9.5% dividend.
BitMine now controls roughly 4.7% of Ethereum’s total supply, putting the company within striking distance of Lee’s stated goal of owning 5% of the asset.
In a separate development, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is now co-chairing a joint venture between OKX and ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, aimed at bringing NYSE-listed assets onchain through tokenized wrappers.
Consumer crypto also showed signs of life, with trading app Fomo announcing a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures, citing more than 625,000 users, over $4 billion in trading volume, and more than 110 million social interactions on its platform.
