Strategy pauses Bitcoin buying, spends $205M buying back STRC stock

Instead, the firm utilized $204.9 million of its USD Cash reserves to repurchase 2,068,459 shares of its variable-rate preferred stock, STRC. This figure is an increase from the $193.1 million spent during the week preceding it.

Consequently, Strategy's USD Cash balance decreased to $242.4 million, down from $447.3 million a week earlier. The firm currently maintains a holding of 848,517 BTC, which were acquired for a total of $64.02 billion at an average price of $75,446 per coin.

The firm also reported no sales through its at-the-market offering program between October 19 and October 25, as detailed in the SEC filing.

This cessation of Bitcoin buying follows several smaller acquisitions; for instance, Strategy bought 267 BTC for $22.1 million the week before, subsequent to spending $21.5 million on 250 BTC in the week before that.

The STRC buyback represented the largest of the recent weeks, rising from $193.1 million the prior week and $192.4 million two weeks prior. The entire cost of this repurchase was covered by the USD Cash pool.

The pause occurs amid regulatory considerations, as Strategy faces potential exclusion from MSCI's Global Investable Market Indexes. MSCI finalized a rule on October 15 stating that "non-operating companies," defined as those whose balance sheets are dominated by a single asset, will be ineligible starting November 30.

This development matters because the index provider is set to publish the list of affected companies on November 11, and removal would compel funds tracking those indexes to divest the shares. Strategy chairman Michael Saylor had previously appealed to MSCI to discard what he termed a "discriminatory" rule.

Why it matters

This shift in capital allocation shows a change in the firm's immediate strategy, prioritizing stock buybacks over Bitcoin acquisition. Readers should watch how this decision impacts the firm's overall holdings amid potential exclusion from MSCI indexes.