After roughly three weeks without a single purchase, Michael Saylor's company Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, bought Bitcoin again. The company added 950 coins for nearly $76 million over the past week, a modest addition next to its overall holdings but notable simply for ending the pause. It landed in the middle of a sharp rally: Bitcoin surged more than 6 percent in 24 hours, pushing its price to nearly $86,000.
The scale of Strategy's position is what makes even a small purchase worth noting. The company now holds 846,000 Bitcoin, roughly 4 percent of the total supply that will ever exist, making it by far the largest corporate holder of the asset anywhere. That size is exactly why its buying and selling behavior functions as a signal to the rest of the market on its own: three weeks of silence followed by a return to buying reads, to many watching the stock, as a vote that management sees real support behind the recovery.
Strategy's own shares jumped nearly 9 percent to $167 following news of the purchase. The company also spent $174 million separately repurchasing shares of STRC, its dividend-paying preferred stock, alongside the Bitcoin buy.
The rally follows a rough stretch for the asset. Bitcoin had fallen to a low near $58,000 in June, a 53 percent drop from its October peak of roughly $125,000, and stayed depressed for the better part of a year before this bounce. Two policy shifts have been credited with reviving demand: a mid-August change in Treasury policy toward heavier long-term bond purchases, and a Federal Reserve rate increase on September 16, both of which have renewed Bitcoin's appeal as a hedge against inflation.
"When you want to buy into a rising market, what August and September have given you is the potential for that to continue," said Chris Beauchamp, IG Group's chief market analyst. He noted that the relatively small size of Strategy's purchase likely reflects a gradual, measured approach to accumulation rather than any particular hesitation about whether the rally holds.