Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) made its smallest positive Bitcoin purchase of 2026 even as a 43% quarterly rally in the cryptocurrency helped generate a $20.9 billion gain on its digital-asset holdings.
In an Oct. 5 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Michael Saylor-founded company said it bought 334 Bitcoin for $28.7 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4 at an average price of $85,838.80, taking its holdings to 848,000 BTC. The acquisition fell below the previous yearly low of 520 BTC bought in June.
The slowdown contrasts with the performance of Strategy’s existing Bitcoin position. Bitcoin gained about 43% during the third quarter, lifting the carrying value of the company’s holdings to $70.82 billion as of Sept. 30.
Strategy estimated a $20.91 billion digital-asset gain for the quarter under fair-value accounting. The gain does not represent realized trading profit, but the rally pushed its Bitcoin value above its roughly $63.97 billion aggregate acquisition cost.
Chaitanya Jain, Strategy’s head of investor relations, said:
“Every $1,000 increase in BTC price [during the third quarter represented] a $848 million fair market value gain to Strategy.”
Yet comparatively little new capital went toward adding to that position during the past week.
Strategy sold 92,894 MSTR shares for $15.7 million to help finance the latest purchase and supplied another $13 million from cash. It acquired 848,000 BTC at an average cost of $75,440.70 each.
At the same time, the company continues to commit considerably more capital to STRC, its variable-rate perpetual preferred stock.
STRC support enters another phase
Strategy spent $176.3 million repurchasing about 1.77 million STRC shares between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, more than six times what it spent buying Bitcoin during the latest reporting period.
The purchases pushed total spending under its preferred-stock repurchase authorization to roughly $1.45 billion, leaving $547.2 million available under a program that Strategy doubled to $2 billion in September.
Despite that intervention, STRC has yet to return sustainably to its $100 stated amount.
Strategy's own investor materials say its objective is for STRC to trade over time between $99 and $100. The preferred security last closed at $100 in mid-May and has remained below that level for nearly 100 consecutive trading sessions, even after recovering sharply from its summer lows.
The company has already taken several steps to close that gap.
It raised STRC's annual dividend rate to 12%, began systematic repurchases and shifted dividend payments from monthly to semi-monthly earlier this year. Strategy said that June change was intended to improve the product's trading characteristics.
It is now proposing another redesign.
In a definitive proxy filed Monday, Strategy asked MSTR shareholders to approve daily dividends across its four US-listed preferred securities. STRC dividends would accrue on every calendar day, including weekends and holidays, and be payable on the next business day.
The annual dividend rate would not increase solely because of the amendment. Instead, Strategy argues that shortening the gap between earning and receiving dividends could reduce price fluctuations, improve liquidity, and attract additional demand.
For STRC specifically, the company says the proposal is intended to support trading at or near its $100 stated amount. Its September investor presentation reiterated that the company's objective remains for STRC to trade between $99 and $100 over time.
That makes the proposal the latest step in an increasingly expensive effort to establish STRC as a stable funding instrument for Strategy's broader Bitcoin strategy.
Oct. 28 vote tests Strategy’s preferred-stock funding model
The stakes extend beyond whether STRC can close the remaining gap to $100.
Strategy has increasingly relied on preferred securities as another route to raise capital without issuing only common stock or debt.
The company told shareholders that improving liquidity and demand across those securities could make future preferred-equity issuance more efficient, potentially expanding the pool of capital available for Bitcoin purchases.
That puts the Oct. 28 vote directly into Strategy’s Bitcoin-financing strategy.
MSTR shareholders of record as of Sept. 25 will decide whether STRC and Strategy’s three other US-listed preferred securities can move to daily dividend accruals. STRC holders themselves will not vote on the amendment.
If approved, STRC would begin accruing dividends daily on Nov. 1, with the first payment under the revised schedule due Nov. 2.
The proposal arrives after an earlier recovery benchmark passed without STRC returning to par. Strategy had highlighted the roughly 70 trading days the security needed to reach $100 after its original launch, a comparison that pointed to early September during the latest rebound.
STRC has since moved much closer to that level but remained below $100 after nearly 100 consecutive trading sessions.
The vote therefore gives Strategy a near-term test of whether changes to STRC’s market structure can reduce the amount of company capital required to support the security.
Failure to establish STRC sustainably around $100 would leave Strategy with a harder choice: continue using cash for repurchases, tolerate a persistent discount that could make future preferred issuance less attractive, or adjust the product's economics again.
Any of those outcomes would affect how efficiently Strategy can finance the next phase of its Bitcoin accumulation.
The post Strategy buys just 334 Bitcoin as preferred-share buybacks reach $1.45 billion appeared first on CryptoSlate.
