Strategy Raises $225 Million for USD Reserve by Selling Shares, Not Bitcoin

Strategy added $225 million to its cash reserves last week—without selling a single Bitcoin.

According to the company's latest SEC filing, the Bitcoin treasury firm sold 2,732,318 shares of its MSTR common stock between July 13 and July 19, netting $263.5 million through its at-the-market offering program—a mechanism that lets companies sell new shares gradually into the open market without arranging a traditional banking deal. It mirrors the firm's actions last week, when it raised $466.7 million through issuing common stock.

The cash raised went directly into what Strategy calls its USD Reserve, a dedicated dollar fund maintained specifically to pay dividends and cover debt obligations. As of July 19, that reserve stands at $3.225 billion, per the form.

The people at the front of that payment line are preferred shareholders—investors who bought one of Strategy's specialized dividend-paying securities like STRC (Stretch), STRK (Strike), STRF (Strife), or STRD (Stride). Preferred shareholders are essentially income investors: they collect regular dividend payments rather than betting on the stock price going up, and they get paid before regular MSTR buyers. Common stockholders—the people who hold MSTR stock—collect whatever's left over.

Michael Saylor confirmed the update in a tweet, writing that Strategy had "increased its USD Reserve by $225 million" and that the firm still holds its full 843,775 BTC stack—roughly 4% of Bitcoin's fixed 21-million-coin supply.

As the world's largest Bitcoin treasury company, Strategy rarely touches its BTC holdings. According to Bitbo's Bitcoin treasuries tracker, the firm has decreased its stack on just six occasions since 2020—three of which were in 2026 alone.

The most recent was a sale of 3,588 BTC for roughly $216 million between late June and early July, made under a formal capital framework the board approved in late June, which permits selling up to $1.25 billion in BTC to top off its reserves.

This week, Strategy’s BTC stash stayed untouched. The company reached for shares instead—issuing new MSTR stock, which dilutes existing common stockholders (each new share issued means every existing share represents a slightly smaller slice of the company), to protect the investors at the front of the payment line.

Peter Schiff, a famous gold advocate and longtime Bitcoin skeptic, didn't hold back, writing that Strategy was "needlessly sacrificing common shareholders to protect preferred shareholders without selling Bitcoin." He suggested the company may be reluctant to sell BTC because it fears the market can't absorb a large liquidation without cratering the price, which could arguably be true given the company’s BTC treasury size.

Schiff has been predicting Bitcoin's collapse for over a decade—but the structural point he's making here, that common shareholders are absorbing the cost of keeping preferred holders paid, is one that other analysts have flagged.

The reason all of this gets watched so closely is simple: Strategy isn't just a company. The firm’s weekly cash reserve updates are a de facto signal for crypto markets. When it buys, Bitcoin tends to move. When it sells—or simply stops buying—market analysts take note.

Its 843,775 BTC were acquired at an average price of $75,476 per coin, leaving the firm with an unrealized loss of roughly $9.6 billion at current prices—a paper loss, meaning no cash actually leaves the building until coins are sold. The USD Reserve has grown by $675 million in two weeks, all from selling shares.