Strategy Spends More Retiring STRC Than Buying Bitcoin

Strategy Inc, Michael Saylor’s bitcoin treasury firm, bought 1,665 bitcoin for $142.7 million in the week ended September 27. It spent more than that, $151.7 million, buying back its Stretch preferred stock, STRC.

The coins made the headline. The larger check went to a security that still cannot be issued, because it trades under the $100 stated amount the company wants it to hold.

The Filing Put More Cash Into STRC

The September 28 Form 8-K disclosure covers September 21 to 27. Strategy paid $85,681 per bitcoin including fees, above the $75,437 average on the full stack, and took total holdings to 847,666 bitcoin bought for $63.95 billion.

Saylor, the founder and executive chairman, put the round numbers on X the same morning: 1,665 bitcoin, $152 million of STRC, 847,666 coins, and $6.02 billion of USD assets as of September 27.

Strategy has acquired 1,665 $BTC and repurchased $152M of $STRC. As of 9/27/26, we hold 847,666 BTC and $6.02B of USD Assets. $MSTR https://t.co/h3BVtsbcBb

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) September 28, 2026

The filing is more precise than the post. The STRC buyback was $151.7 million for 1,534,530 shares, about $98.86 each. That average is the price Strategy paid in the market, not the September 25 close.

THE WEEK’S CASH MOVES

USD Reserve ended the week at $5.02 billion. USD Cash, a separate pool for treasury uses, stood at $1.00 billion. Together they are the $6.02 billion Saylor labelled USD assets.

Strategy Sold 1,469,165 Common Shares for $246.2 Million

Every new dollar that week came from Class A common stock, ticker MSTR. Strategy sold 1,469,165 shares through its at-the-market program and booked $246.2 million after commissions. Of that, $142.7 million paid for the bitcoin and $103.5 million went into the STRC buyback. The other $48.1 million of the Stretch purchases came from USD Cash already on the books.

That is a different machine from the one Strategy ran for most of 2025 and early 2026, when Stretch itself was the cheap way to raise bitcoin money. Common stock is now doing two jobs at once: adding coins, and retiring the preferred that was supposed to add them.

The $1.0 billion authorization to buy MSTR itself sat unused. No STRF, STRK, or STRD preferred changed hands either. Stretch was the only preferred that moved, and it only moved in one direction: in.

The cost of that choice sits with common holders. New MSTR shares fund a bid under a senior claim, and they also fund bitcoin that now costs $85,681, about $10,244 above the stack’s blended cost. The treasury gets larger. The share count gets larger with it.

Why Stretch Still Cannot Print New Stock

STRC is Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, listed on Nasdaq, with a $100 stated amount and a 12.00% annual rate at present, paid as $0.50 twice a month when the board declares it. Strategy launched it on July 29, 2025, at $90 a share, as a high-yield note designed to trade near par so the company could issue more of it and buy bitcoin with the proceeds.

Issuance stops when the stock sits under $100, because selling new Stretch below stated amount raises less than $100 of cash against a $100 claim. Management’s stated intent, carried in the September 27 briefing, is to avoid new STRC issuance below $100 and to recommend keeping the 12.00% rate until the stock shows sustained, healthy trading near that figure.

WHY THE STRETCH ATM STAYS SHUT

• The print: Strategy sold no STRC, STRF, STRK, or STRD under its preferred at-the-market programs from September 21 to 27.
• The price: Stretch closed at $98.54 on September 25, a 1.5% discount to the $100 stated amount, for a 12.18% effective yield on the $12 annual dividend.
• The unused shelf: $17,510.8 million of STRC at-the-market capacity remains on the books and was not touched.
• The float: After the week’s buyback, Strategy reported 91.63 million Stretch shares outstanding, $9.163 billion of notional, with about $145 million of average 30-day trading volume.

Until Stretch holds the $99 to $100 band Saylor set as the corporate objective, that $17,510.8 million shelf is scenery. The working ATM is MSTR.

June’s Framework Made Issuance a Two-Way Book

The company said as much on June 29, when it adopted the Digital Credit Capital Framework in June. Stretch had been below par for weeks. Bitcoin buying paused. The board built a cash reserve, lifted the STRC coupon, and authorised buybacks so the firm could take paper in when it was cheap instead of only printing it when it was dear.

FROM JUNE 29 TO THIS FILING

1. June 29, 2026: Strategy sets a USD Reserve policy (then $2.55 billion, about 17.4 months against $1.76 billion of annual preferred dividends and interest, with a 12-month floor), raises the STRC rate by 50 bps to 12.00%, authorises $1.0 billion of preferred buybacks with STRC as the first call, authorises $1.0 billion of MSTR buybacks, and permits up to $1.25 billion of bitcoin sales to fund the reserve, dividends, or those buybacks.
2. July 27, 2026: First Stretch purchases, 288,930 shares for $25 million at $86.52. Saylor says the company will be a regular, disciplined buyer below $100, more at deeper discounts, less as the price nears par.
3. September 8, 2026: The board lifts the preferred buyback authorization from $1.0 billion to $2.0 billion.
4. September 21 to 27, 2026: MSTR sales resume, 1,665 bitcoin are added, and 1,534,530 STRC shares come in, leaving $723.5 million of preferred buyback room and the $1.0 billion MSTR authorization still unused.

Saylor tied the June package to bitcoin and to the preferred book in the same breath.

Strategy remains committed to Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. At the same time, Digital Credit requires liquidity, discipline, and active capital management. This framework is designed to strengthen credit quality and enable the Company to reduce expected preferred stock dividend payments when accretive.

Michael Saylor, Founder and Executive Chairman, June 29, 2026 press release

Chief executive Phong Le described the shift in operational terms: the firm would issue when capital was attractive and buy paper back when the instruments made that accretive. Chief financial officer Andrew Kang called bitcoin capital, and said the monetization program let Strategy use part of the reserve to fund credit, dividends, and buybacks when selling coins beat selling common.

The company did sell bitcoin over the summer under that program, then started buying again. The September 27 briefing still lists a $2.0 billion credit buyback with STRC as the initial priority, and it still says repurchases below $100 retire stated amount at a discount and cut future dividend bills. USD Reserve coverage in that briefing is about 3.1 years against the 12-month policy minimum. Saylor’s follow-up post put USD Duration at 3.8 years and STRC’s BTC Credit at 49 bps, using 10% bitcoin ARR, 40% volatility, and a $84,006 bitcoin price on the credit metrics on Strategy’s dashboard.

303 Coins Above the June Peak

Holdings as of June 28 were 847,363 bitcoin, with no purchase in that reporting week. After the summer sales and the later restocking, the September 27 total of 847,666 is 303 coins above that June figure, a new high for the treasury.

THE STACK ACROSS THREE FILINGS

The week to September 20 was the first of two straight purchase weeks after a pause, and it ran entirely on cash. USD Reserve then was $5.04 billion and USD Cash $1.05 billion. The week to September 27 put the ATM back to work. Two weeks, two funding sources, same destination split: some bitcoin, more Stretch.

On August 31 the company had added 4,603 bitcoin for $369.7 million at $80,318 and reported 845,050 coins. That buy, like this one, rode MSTR proceeds. The pattern since late summer is not a pure stack. It is a stack that has to share the wire with a preferred that still needs a bid.

The Bid Is Meant to Fade Near $100

Saylor’s July 27 rule is still the operating one. Buy more when the discount is wide. Buy less as Stretch approaches $100. Do not issue new STRC under par. Keep the coupon at 12.00% until the tape looks healthy near $100.

We intend to remain a regular, disciplined buyer of STRC below $100. More at deeper discounts, less as STRC nears $100.

Michael Saylor, Founder and Executive Chairman, July 27, 2026 statement

At $98.86 paid and $98.54 on the September 25 close, the discount is a couple of dollars, not the $13-plus gap of late July. The bid is already in the taper zone. $723.5 million remains under the $2.0 billion preferred program. The 3-month total return on STRC in the briefing is 34.1%, which is the climb off those summer discounts, not a coupon story.

Common holders are the ones paying for that last stretch of the repair. Each MSTR share sold at the ATM funds bitcoin the company could once have bought by issuing Stretch, and it funds a buyback that retires a 12.00% claim. Preferred holders get a sponsored bid under par and a declared $0.50 for the September 30 and October 15 payment dates. Bitcoin holders inside the treasury get 1,665 more coins at a price above the blended cost.

What they do not get, yet, is the Stretch ATM reopening. $17,510.8 million of that capacity is still unused, STRC is still under $100, and the next bitcoin check still has to clear through common stock or cash until the preferred trades in the band the board named in June.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of Strategy Inc’s public filings, investor materials, and official statements. It is for information only and is not investment advice, a solicitation to buy or sell MSTR, STRC, other Strategy securities, or bitcoin, or a recommendation of any trade. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser, broker, or other qualified professional who can consider their own objectives, risk tolerance, and tax position before acting. Figures, holdings, prices, dividend rates, and program capacities are those stated in the cited company documents as of the dates given in the piece and can change in later filings and trading sessions.