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Representations of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency can be seen in this illustrative photo taken on June 7, 2021.
Egdar Su | Reuters
MicroStrategy said on Monday that it had more than 100,000 bitcoins after completing another buying cycle, this time spending around $ 489 million on 13,005 tokens.
Shares of the Virginia-based enterprise software company fell more than 6% in pre-market trading, reflecting a similarly large drop in the price of bitcoin on Monday morning. The cryptocurrency fell more than 8% to around $ 32,200 per token as reports surfaced that China stepped up its crackdown on bitcoin mining.
MicroStrategy said the average purchase price for its 105,085 bitcoin treasury was $ 26,080 each, including fees and other expenses. The company’s holdings were worth more than $ 3 billion on Monday.
Over the past year, MicroStrategy has grown from relative obscurity to a well-known force on Wall Street and in the crypto community, thanks to its aggressive bets on bitcoin and the evangelism of President and CEO Michael Saylor, who Bitcoin is regularly touted on Twitter. He has amassed over a million followers on the social media site.
In an interview with CNBC last week, Saylor defended the company’s crypto activities, which involved debt offers in order to buy more bitcoin. MicroStrategy also recently filed for a $ 1 billion additional share sale program, the proceeds of which can be used to acquire bitcoin.
“We have pivoted our shareholder base and grown into a company capable of selling enterprise software and acquiring and holding bitcoin, and we have done so successfully with leverage.” , said Saylor.
“This has multiplied the power of the brand by 100. We just had our best quarter of software … in the last 10 years,” he added, noting that total revenue had increased by 10% from one year to the next. “Bitcoin trading generates returns for shareholders. I think the employees are happy. The shareholders are happy.”
MicroStrategy’s shares have skyrocketed since the company announced its first bitcoin purchase before the August 11 bell. The shares are up about 423% from their August 10 closing price at $ 646.46 on Friday.
The stock hit a 52-week high on February 9, trading above $ 1,300 per share, which was its highest level since the dot-com boom.
Bitcoin has endured a difficult trading period over the past two months after hitting an all-time high of nearly $ 65,000 in April, around the time of Coinbase’s blockbuster direct listing.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, was still up around 11% year-to-date, based on Monday morning’s trading price.
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