MicroStrategy buys $1B+ in bitcoin

Tysons-based software company now has $4.5B in bitcoin holdings

Published February 24, 2021 by Rich Griset

Tysons-based business software company MicroStrategy Inc. announced Wednesday that it has purchased $1.026 billion of additional bitcoin, its largest single bitcoin purchase since it began acquiring the cryptocurrency last August.

With this latest transaction, MicroStrategy’s total bitcoin holdings are worth approximately $4.5 billion, valued at current rates of $49,884 per bitcoin. The enterprise software company’s February acquisition of approximately 19,452 bitcoins puts its total holdings at 90,531 as of Feb. 24.

MicroStrategy reported that it paid an average price of $52,765 per bitcoin, including fees and other expenses. It places the average purchase price of all its bitcoins at $23,985 each, including fees and other expenses.

“The company remains focused on our two corporate strategies of growing our enterprise analytics software business and acquiring and holding bitcoin,” MicroStrategy CEO Michael J. Saylor said in a statement. On Twitter and in interviews with CNBC, Saylor has become one of the most prominent advocates for bitcoin as a safe haven investment.

“The company now holds over 90,000 bitcoins, reaffirming our belief that bitcoin, as the world’s most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, can serve as a dependable store of value,” Saylor said. “We will continue to pursue our strategy of acquiring bitcoin with excess cash and we may, from time to time, subject to market conditions, issue debt or equity securities in capital raising transactions with the objective of using the proceeds to purchase additional bitcoin.”

The announcement comes just two days after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that bitcoin is an “extremely inefficient” way to conduct monetary transactions, saying the cryptocurrency’s stability and legitimacy remained in question. As of Feb. 24, a single bitcoin was valued at approximately $49,000.

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Saylor said he thinks bitcoin, which currently has a total market value of $1 trillion, will one day be valued at $100 trillion.

Last August, MicroStrategy announced its first bitcoin purchase, saying it had converted $250 million from its cash holdings to more than 21,000 bitcoins, making it one of the first public companies to use cryptocurrency for cash holdings. In September 2020, the company announced it had completed an acquisition of 16,796 additional bitcoins at an aggregate purchase price of $175 million. In December, MicroStrategy announced it closed a convertible debt offering by raising $650 million which it planned to use to increase its bitcoin holdings. Last week, the company announced it would raise $900 million from a convertible senior notes offering to purchase even more bitcoin.

MicroStrategy employs approximately 2,400 people and offers business data analytics software.

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