The CEO of bitcoin treasury Strategy brushed off concerns investors may have about the company selling some of its stash, instead telling reporters that the move was to strengthen its balance sheet.
Speaking to Bloomberg on Tuesday, Phong Le said that the company now has a “bullet-proof balance sheet” and it was the “right trade at the time” to sell bitcoin when it did.
Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, restarted its buying the cryptocurrency on Monday after a 10-week pause. After halting its buys in June, it instead sold small amounts of its bitcoin and built two cash reserves.
“We don’t really make decisions specifically on bitcoin’s price,” Le said.
He added: “We’re a net accumulator, and so I don’t sit around and say, ‘Well, when am I going to sell Bitcoin next?’ It comes down to a bit of a capital management mathematical equation of when we would do it.”
“I don’t foresee us selling bitcoin as we enter into what I consider a pretty heavy bull market.”
Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — is an enterprise software company that pivoted to buying and holding bitcoin in 2020.
It first bought the cryptocurrency to protect its shareholders from inflation but has since aggressively bought the asset and pivoted to being a bitcoin treasury. It is now the largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency, with 845,050 bitcoins worth $65.1 billion at today’s prices.
Investors can buy Strategy’s Nasdaq-listed stock (MSTR) to get heightened exposure to bitcoin’s performance.
This year, Strategy has bought back some of its preferred stock, STRC, which is trading at a discount, and increasing its dollar cushion.
In the company’s quarterly earnings in July, Strategy posted a $8.22 billion loss. But Le said the firm’s current paper loss wasn’t important for the time being, and that next year, its stock would soar again.
“We’re the J.P. Morgan of the crypto economy, so whether we sell 1,000 Bitcoin out of 840,000 to me is irrelevant to the conversation,” Le said.
Strategy stock (NASDAQ: MSTR) was trading 2% lower on Wednesday. Year-to-date, the stock is down 22%.