What exactly happened?
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), led by Michael Saylor, sold 1,638 bitcoin between July 27 and August 2. According to a Form 8-K filing with the U.S. SEC dated August 3, the company took in roughly $104.7 million for them, as reported consistently by both CryptoSlate and The Defiant.
The Defiant specifies that the average realized price, after deducting fees, came to $63,957 per bitcoin.
This is the second largest bitcoin sale the company has carried out this year. Both Kryptomagazín.cz and Cointelegraph confirm this.
Where did the money go?
The key point of the whole story: not a single dollar from the sale went toward buying new bitcoin. CryptoSlate states this explicitly.
Instead, according to the filing, the company split the raised funds between two things:
- Preferred stock dividend payments. The Defiant reports that $52.4 million of the proceeds covered preferred stock dividends.
- STRC buybacks. CryptoSlate reports an STRC buyback worth $81 million. STRC is one of the preferred securities that Strategy issued to fund its strategy.
Where does the full $395 million come from?
The bitcoin sale itself brought in only part of the cash. According to CryptoSlate, Strategy simultaneously issued approximately 3.01 million MSTR common shares, raising another $290.6 million.
Together, then, according to CryptoSlate, the company raised roughly $395 million, with part of the stated goal being to increase its cash reserve to around $4 billion.
| Source of capital | Amount (per CryptoSlate) |
|---|---|
| Sale of 1,638 BTC | approx. $104.7 million |
| Issuance of approx. 3.01 million MSTR shares | approx. $290.6 million |
| Total raised | approx. $395 million |
Why is this a shift from the previous strategy?
Strategy has long been known for accumulating bitcoin and practically never selling. Selling in order to service its own obligations (dividends and preferred stock buybacks) is therefore a change in how it manages its reserve.
CryptoSlate reports that with this sale the total amount of bitcoin the company has disposed of over the year rose to 5,258 BTC, which is said to be the largest amount sold in any year since Strategy began buying bitcoin in 2020.
What don't we know yet?
The sources describe the individual amounts, but the complete breakdown of the full $395 million among dividends, STRC buybacks, and the cash reserve cannot be clearly reconciled from the available summaries (the partial figures given do not add up to the total without further context from the filing).
One of the English sources (CryptoSlate) mentions the year 2026 in its summary of cumulative sales; however, the timing of the transaction (July 27 to August 2, filing on August 3) and the other sources all refer to the current year. We note this discrepancy transparently and treat it as a probable inaccuracy in the source.
Likewise, we do not know whether this is a one-off move or the beginning of a more lasting pattern of funding dividends through BTC sales. Only future SEC filings will show that.
What to watch for with this type of news?
This is not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. It is a description of what the company did according to a regulatory filing. For companies with a large bitcoin reserve funded through preferred stock, it is useful to watch precisely where the money for dividends comes from: from new share and debt issuance, or from selling the reserve itself. The hardest source of truth remains the official SEC filings, not the headlines.