STRATEGY BOUGHT 4,603 BITCOIN AT $80,318 — IT DIDN’T TOUCH THE $6.69 BILLION IN CASH, IT SOLD STOCK — AND A THIRD OF THAT RAISE WENT TO PREFERRED HOLDERS, NOT COINS

Strategy bought 4,603 bitcoin for $369.7 million between August 24 and 30, at an average of $80,318 a coin. Holdings are now 845,050 bitcoin, aggregate cost $63.73 billion, average $75,412. Now read how it was paid for, because that is the part the headline number hides. Strategy did not touch the $6.69 billion in cash and restricted reserve it spent the August pause building. It sold common stock. The filing says it plainly: $369.7 million in net proceeds from MSTR stock sales were used to fund bitcoin purchases. And the raise was bigger than the buy. Stock sales brought in $602.8 million net. Of that, $369.7 million bought coins, $151.8 million repurchased preferred stock, $50.7 million paid preferred dividends, and $30 million went to cash. For every dollar of stock sold, about 61 cents bought bitcoin and 34 cents serviced the capital structure. They also paid $80,318 a coin into a market trading near $78,000. The flywheel is running. It is just running partly to feed the securities stacked on top of it, and the fuel is shareholder dilution, not the cash they already had.