Morning Minute: Strategy Chooses Cash, STRC Over BTC

The institution sold 5.4 cardinal MSTR shares done its at-the-market programme betwixt July 20 and 26 to rise cash, portion its Bitcoin holdings stayed frozen astatine 843,775 BTC, untouched since the 520-coin acquisition connected June 22. Strategy besides repurchased $25 cardinal of its ain STRC preferred stock, its archetypal acquisition nether the $1 cardinal authorization the committee approved June 29.

STRC has traded beneath its $100 par worth since mid-May and deed grounds lows earlier this month, truthful Strategy is present utilizing shareholder-funded currency to prop up the aforesaid preferred banal whose descent has been dragging connected the full structure. So Saylor is present selling MSTR shares 80% disconnected ATH to bargain STRC (12% disconnected its peg) alternatively of Bitcoin.

Strategy Adds $525M to Cash Reserve, Skips Bitcoin Buy for Fifth Week

Clearly, MSTR holders bask the pain. For 5 weeks, Saylor has been diluting communal shareholders by selling MSTR to physique currency and present to bargain backmost preferred. Last week, Strategy adjacent overhauled its ain metrics, introducing "net Bitcoin per share" that strips retired $22.2 cardinal successful indebtedness and preferred claims, and redefining mNAV truthful the banal present reads 1.02x, close astatine the enactment beneath which issuing shares to bargain coins would really shrink Bitcoin per share.

As for the Strategy BTC stack, it is present $8.5 cardinal underwater against the $63.69 cardinal Strategy paid. But net are coming this Thursday, and Saylor is 1 to person tricks up his proverbial sleeves. Perhaps we volition larn much astir his program and his adjacent determination aboriginal this week.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are precise reddish amidst representation banal selloff and South Korean marketplace slide; BTC -3% astatine $63.4k; ETH -4% astatine $1,875; SOL -4% astatine $73.1; HYPE -9% astatine $54.45

• No apical movers

• Oil -2% astatine $81; Gold -1% astatine $4,030

• Stock futures are mixed arsenic representation stocks selloff but others pump connected beardown earnings; DOW +0.7%, Nasdaq -0.9%

• The US Senate enactment disconnected the CLARITY Act for now, focusing its constricted pre-recess bandwidth elsewhere, efficaciously confirming the crypto market-structure measure misses its August model contempt weeks of last-minute dialog

• Circle bought astir 1,000 blockchain patents from IBM, a antiaircraft intellectual-property determination to limb itself arsenic stablecoin contention from Open USD, Visa, and Stripe intensifies

• Kalshi and Polymarket won a intermission against Minnesota's prediction-market ban, a ineligible reprieve arsenic the platforms support warring state-level challenges crossed the state

• Fanatics bought a regulated speech to turn its prediction-markets business, bringing the $30 cardinal sports-merchandise elephantine straight into the abstraction alongside Kalshi and Polymarket

• Kraken genitor Payward acquired Magic Labs' embedded wallet business, absorbing a level that's created implicit 60 cardinal wallets since 2018, portion Magic rebrands to Newton Labs to absorption connected its onchain-finance authorization furniture