On May 5, Strategy reported a net loss of $12.54 billion in Q1, the biggest quarterly loss in the company’s history, and Michael Saylor used the earnings call to retract the brand he had built: that the firm would never sell Bitcoin. The change is real. The more important revelation was the calculation behind it.
Strategy reverses its ‘never sell’ policy on Bitcoin
Saylor’s exact words: «We’ll probably sell some Bitcoin to pay a dividend, just to immunize the market and send the message that we did it.»
In February 2026, he told CNBC that the firm would «buy Bitcoin every quarter forever» and claimed that Strategy could survive a BTC crash to $8,000 without selling. Both positions are now retired. Days before the results call, Saylor had already signaled discipline by announcing the first weekly pause of 2026 in Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases, just the second such break all year, entering the SEC-imposed blackout period ahead of Tuesday’s results release.
$12.54 billion loss in Q1 2026 due to BTC value adjustment
The loss was driven almost entirely by an unrealized adjustment of $14.46 billion, as BTC fell from around $87,000 on January 1 to around $68,000 on March 31 — a quarterly decline of 23.8%. Shares of MSTR were down more than 4% after the market closed.
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Saylor’s 2.3% breakeven covers $1.5 billion in dividends
Strategy holds 818,334 BTC at an average cost of $75,537. Annual dividend obligations: $1.5 billion. The break-even point disclosed by Saylor during the call: a 2.3% annual appreciation of BTC covers these dividends indefinitely without selling MSTR common stock and without selling any BTC. The previous figure, from April, was 2.05%; the increase reflects continued STRC issuances. For perspective: the lowest five-year average annualized growth rate (CAGR) in BTC history is around 17%. The threshold to be exceeded is 2.3%. The phrase «sell to immunize» is inversely derived from this reasoning. Short sellers have built a thesis based on forced selling under stress. A small, pre-announced voluntary sale closes that thesis without signaling capital pressures.
STRC reaches $8.5 billion market cap in nine months
STRC has reached a market capitalization of USD 8.5 billion, with USD 5.58 billion raised since the beginning of the year (+189%) and an average daily trading volume of approximately USD 375 million. Strategy raised a total of $11.68 billion in 2026 — the largest US equity offering that year. If STRC remains open, BTC accumulation continues. If it breaks, the supply story reverses.