STRATEGY'S BITCOIN CASH BOUGHT STRATEGY'S OWN PREFERRED STOCK

The filing defines two pots of money and then tells you which one it used. The USD Reserve, $5.10 billion, is there “to support the payment of dividends on Strategy’s preferred stock and interest on its outstanding indebtedness.” The USD Cash, $1.30 billion, is for “broader general Bitcoin Treasury Company purposes, which may include acquiring bitcoin.”

Between September 8 and September 13, Strategy used $139.3 million of the second pot. It bought 1,420,467 shares of its own STRC preferred. It bought no bitcoin. It sold nothing under the at-the-market program. The coin count did not move: 845,050, the same as the week before, at the same $75,412 average.

Work out what they paid and the week gets more interesting. $139.3 million for 1,420,467 shares is $98.07 a share. The week before it was $97.36. They paid 71 cents more for the same paper. Retiring it costs more as it recovers, which is the buyback working and the buyback running out of room at the same time.

What is left: $1.05 billion still authorized to buy back preferred, $1.0 billion authorized to buy back common, and $1.30 billion of cash to do both. That arithmetic does not close without the at-the-market program. It sold nothing this week.

At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $77,607 at 9:05 AM ET on Coin Metrics.