Strategy did not buy any Bitcoin last week, the first pause in its weekly purchases since mid-September.
Instead, the company spent $204.9 million repurchasing 2,068,459 shares of STRC, its variable-rate preferred stock, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. It also sold no common stock through its at-the-market programme.
A growing focus on buybacks
The STRC repurchase was the largest in a run of weekly buybacks. Strategy spent $193.1 million the week before, $192.4 million the week before that, $176 million earlier in October and $151.7 million in the last week of September.
Across those five weeks, that adds up to about $918 million.
The Bitcoin buying, meanwhile, had already been small in recent weeks. Strategy bought 267 BTC for $22.1 million the previous week, and 250 BTC for $21.5 million the week before.
The cash is running down
The buyback was paid entirely from Strategy’s USD Cash pool, which fell to $242.4 million from $447.3 million a week earlier.
Its separate USD Reserve, set aside to cover preferred stock dividends and debt interest, held steady at $4.83 billion.
About $956.8 million remains under Strategy’s $3 billion programme for repurchasing these securities. It also has $1 billion left in a separate buyback programme for its common stock.
Holdings unchanged
Strategy still holds 848,517 BTC, acquired for about $64.02 billion at an average cost of $75,446 per coin.
The MSCI backdrop
The pause comes as MSCI prepares to publish, on 11 November, the list of companies that will be removed from its main indexes under new rules for non-operating companies. Removals take effect at the close of 30 November.
What happens next
At last week’s pace, Strategy’s USD Cash pool would cover roughly one more week of STRC buybacks. Whether it resumes Bitcoin buying, tops up the cash pool or slows the buybacks will show in next Monday’s filing.
