MicroStrategy makes its largest BTC buy in 2 years

MicroStrategy bought more than 12,000 bitcoins over the last two months, bringing its total above 152,000 BTC. 

The largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin acquired 12,333 BTC for $347 million between April 29 and June 27 — an average price of $28,136, the company revealed Wednesday.

The 152,333 bitcoins it now holds were purchased for $4.52 billion, reflecting a price of $29,668 per bitcoin. 

Bitcoin’s price was about $30,150 at 10 am ET,  up nearly 82% year to date despite dropping roughly 1.5% in the last five days. 

Meanwhile MicroStrategy’s stock price has jumped 124% since the beginning of 2023 and is roughly flat over the last week. 

The buy of more than 12,333 BTC is its largest addition to its bitcoin stack since June 2021, when it purchased 13,005 bitcoins. Those were bought at an average price of $37,617 as the price of bitcoin would peak later that year at nearly $70,000.

BlackRock’s latest move to seek to launch a spot bitcoin ETF — and the re-upping of bids by other firms to do the same, might be a factor behind the buy, according to David Tawil, president of ProChain Capital.

“I think that fundamentally, the serious push for the bitcoin ETF is a game-changer,” Tawil told Blockworks. “It makes sense that Saylor wants to get in before the approval as much as possible.”

The business intelligence company has added to its BTC holdings in smaller quantities more recently, buying 6,455 BTC in March and adding 1,045 bitcoins the following month. 

Read more: Dorsey and Saylor’s bitcoin strategy is paying off — for now

Berenberg Capital Markets Analyst Mark Palmer and associate Hassan Saleem said in a May 22 research note — after the SEC’s Wells notice against Coinbase and before it launched its lawsuit against the company — that MicroStrategy was an attractive alternative to the crypto exchange for investors seeking exposure to the crypto space. 

“Moreover, we believe investors who are resolutely bearish on [Coinbase] and inclined to short it should consider pairing it with [MicroStrategy],” they wrote. “We note that the correlation between shares of [MicroStrategy] and those of [Coinbase] since the latter went public through a direct listing in April 2021 is 0.96.”

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