Tysons-based Strategy buys another $2.5B in bitcoin

Tysons-based Strategy, which changed its corporate name from MicroStrategy earlier this year to reflect its new focus on bitcoin investment, purchased another $2.46 billion worth of the cryptocurrency over the course of the last week, according to Bloomberg.

This is Strategy’s third-largest bitcoin purchase by dollar amount since it began its bitcoin acquisitions five years ago.

It also paid an average $117.526 per token between July 28 and Aug. 3, the second-highest price Strategy has ever paid, according to Bloomberg.

The latest bitcoin purchase brings Strategy’s total holdings to more than $71 billion, cementing its place as the largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency in the world.

Billionaire founder Michael Saylor started MicroStrategy as a data mining software company in 1989, and still operates as that business, reporting record results from its core business for its latest quarter. But its bitcoin holdings dwarf its software business, at more than 100 times the company’s annual revenue.

Saylor has rebranded the company as “the world’s first Bitcoin Treasury Company.”

To fund bitcoin purchases, Strategy has raised money through a combination of new share sales and new debt.

Strategy has drawn both praise and criticism from investors, though any criticism has been overshadowed by the company’s stock performance, with shares up more than 3,000% since its first crypto investment in 2020, outpacing gains for not only the border stock market, but bitcoin itself.

Saylor’s own personal finances have risen along with Strategy stock. The former rocket scientist who studied aeronautics and astronautics at MIT and on an Air Force scholarship before founding MicroStrategy in 1989 ranks No. 430 on Forbes World’s Billionaires list, with an estimated personal net worth of $99 billion.