Strategy Bought 1,036 BTC at $79,012, but 66% of Its $283.8 Million MSTR Sale Went to STRC Buybacks, Two Days Before MSCI's November 11 List

Where the $283.8 million went

The filing's footnote splits the proceeds exactly. The percentages are our arithmetic.

Strategy sold 2,051,348 MSTR shares and bought back 1,887,464 STRC shares. That works out to about $138.35 per MSTR share in net proceeds and about $99.77 per STRC share.

The pattern is not new. Cointelegraph counts about $1.06 billion on STRC buybacks since the start of October, against $219.7 million on bitcoin. Decrypt notes one change from the previous week, when the buyback came out of USD Cash and took that balance down to $132.7 million. This time new stock paid for it.

The filing gives no reason for the split. Our reading is that STRC trading just under its $100 face value makes a buyback attractive to the company, and that this competes directly with bitcoin for each dollar raised. Cointelegraph quoted STRC at $99.70 in premarket trading on Monday. Our earlier piece on the preferred stock has the background.

The room left is limited. The filing shows $560.3 million remaining under the preferred buyback program. At last week's pace that lasts about three more weeks ($560.3 million ÷ $188.3 million = 2.98) unless the board expands it.

This week against last week

The earlier column comes from Decrypt and Cointelegraph. BTC buying rose 25% in dollars, while the buyback fell 10%. Even so, the latest buyback was still 2.3 times the bitcoin spend ($188.3 million ÷ $81.9 million).

What the purchase did to the numbers

Buying above the average nudged it up by $5. Strategy's dashboard data at 22:45 SGT put the holding at $63.43 billion and supply share at 4.05%.

Being under cost forces nothing by itself, as we covered this morning. The cash figures in this filing are the update to that. USD Reserve stood at $4.77 billion after $21.1 million in preferred dividends for the week, and USD Cash at $146.2 million. The dashboard lists about $1.46 billion in annual preferred dividends and 40.4 months of cover. That figure matches the two balances combined: $4.916 billion ÷ $1.461 billion × 12 = 40.4.

The 1,036 or 1,037 question

Some wire items, including PANews, reported 1,037 BTC. The filing's table says 1,036. The two filings do leave a one-coin gap: 850,364 now minus 849,327 a week ago is 1,037. Rounding of fractional coins is the likely reason, though the filing does not say so. We use the filing's purchase figure.

Why MSCI matters more than this purchase this week

Cointelegraph reported on October 16 that MSCI adopted rules making "non-operating companies" ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes, with a final list on November 11 and changes taking effect on November 30. Strategy, Metaplanet and Upexi had been identified earlier for deletion under that method.

Two sizing numbers are in circulation, and they measure different things:

• $2.8 billion. JPMorgan's earlier estimate of selling from an exclusion. Cointelegraph notes it concerned MSCI's previous proposal, not the adopted rules.
• About 13 million shares. Strategy's own August figure for shares held by funds tracking these indexes, or 3.1% of basic shares and less than one day's trading volume by its account. At $123.63 that is about $1.6 billion, on our arithmetic.

Neither number covers funds that hold MSTR for other reasons, and neither says when selling would happen. Index funds commonly trade around the effective date, so November 30 may matter as much as the list itself. That timing is our interpretation.

The list also matters for how Strategy buys bitcoin, since the purchases came entirely from stock sales. The dashboard showed an mNAV of 1.09 at 22:45 SGT, compared with 1.12 on Monday morning's reading. Enterprise value divided by BTC value from the same feed gives about 1.06 ($67.36 billion ÷ $63.43 billion), so the dashboard's figure uses inputs we did not reconcile. Either way the cushion has narrowed. The lower it goes, the less bitcoin per share each new stock sale adds.

How traders can follow it on an exchange

MSTR trades as a perpetual on Bitget, OKX and Binance, and our MSTR tracker lists 10 venues in all, including stock tokens. Our tokenized stocks hub compares hours and fees. Public market data at about 22:46 SGT:

Funding this close to zero shows no crowded bet on either side going into the list. It can change quickly on the day, so check our funding board when you act.

Bitget's 24-hour range on the contract was $122.16 to $128.64, a 5.3% span. At 10x leverage a move that size equals 53% of your margin, before fees. Headlines on November 11 can land while New York is shut, and perpetuals keep trading then. The reference market reopens later, which is when gaps tend to close.

On cost, Bitget's listed perpetual taker fee is 0.06%. A $1,000 MSTR position costs $0.60 to open, and with sign-up code nexu888 the 60% rebate returns $0.36 of that, settled daily. OKX lists 0.05% and a 20% share with the same code, so $0.50 and $0.10 back. Each side of a trade pays separately.

What to watch next

1. November 11: MSCI's final list, and whether Strategy is on it. The time of day has not been stated in what we read.
2. November 16: the usual Monday filing if the weekly pattern holds. Compare bitcoin spending with STRC spending again.
3. November 30: the date index changes take effect.
4. STRC around $100. Buybacks slowed slightly, from $208.2 million to $188.3 million. A price at or above face value would change the case for buying it back.

What we could not confirm

• Why Strategy favoured STRC over bitcoin. The filing gives amounts and no reasoning.
• Whether Strategy is on MSCI's final list, and how many shares index funds would sell. Strategy's 13 million figure dates from August.
• The Block's related report, which blocked our reader. We relied on the filing, Decrypt and Cointelegraph.
• The exact prices Strategy paid through the week. The filing gives averages only.

Quick answers

How much bitcoin does Strategy hold now?

850,364 BTC as of November 8, bought for $64.16 billion including fees, at an average of $75,456.

Did Strategy buy 1,036 or 1,037 BTC?

The SEC filing says 1,036. The total rose by 1,037 from the previous filing, which is why some reports used that number.

Where did the money come from?

All of it came from selling 2,051,348 MSTR shares for $283.8 million in net proceeds. No preferred stock was sold under the program last week.

Will MSCI remove Strategy?

MSCI's list is due on November 11. Strategy was previously identified for deletion under the method, but the final list had not been published when we wrote this.