Strategy resumed buying Bitcoin after a 10-week pause, adding 4,603 coins for $369.7 million between 24 and 30 August. An 8-K filed on Monday put the average purchase price at $80,318, including fees. Total holdings rose to 845,050 BTC, bought for about $63.73 billion at an average $75,412 a coin, worth roughly $66.1 billion at current prices. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor posted "We're back" on Sunday. The last reported purchase was 1,587 BTC for about $100 million in mid-June. August had gone the other way: Strategy sold 1,638 BTC for $104.7 million between 27 July and 2 August, then another 1,690 BTC for $108.6 million the following week. The new lot puts the stack back above those sales, though still below the 847,363 BTC held in late June.
The coins were funded by at-the-market sales of Class A common stock, ticker MSTR. Last week the company sold 4,531,421 shares for about $602.8 million net. Of that, $369.7 million went to Bitcoin, $151.8 million bought back 1,557,177 shares of STRC preferred, $50.7 million covered STRC dividends, and $30 million went into the USD Cash account, which stood at $1.61 billion on 30 August. The USD Reserve was $5.1 billion. Net leverage was reported at 0.0%. That mix is the point. Strategy is still issuing equity to buy coins, and it is still servicing a preferred stack that it raised to a 12% annual dividend in June. The buy does not change the September Fed path that just put spot ETFs back into a $217 million creation.
Strive spends $143 million to take fifth place
Strive, the Dallas asset manager, bought 1,800 BTC for about $143 million between 24 and 28 August at an average $79,431 a coin, CEO Matt Cole confirmed on Monday. Holdings rose to 23,156 BTC from 21,356 a week earlier. BitcoinTreasuries data put Strive past Bullish, which holds about 22,000 BTC, into fifth place among publicly traded corporate holders, behind Strategy, Twenty One Capital, Metaplanet, and MARA Holdings. Cole marked it with "Strive to five." The week prior, Strive had added 1,110 BTC for $81.5 million at $73,409. Combined, that is 2,910 coins in two weeks. Funding came from ATM issuance: 803,099 shares of Variable Rate Series A preferred, ticker SATA, raising $80.3 million, and 3,579,147 Class A shares for about $74.3 million. TD Cowen lifted its ASST price target to $32 from $28 and kept a Buy rating.
Corporate treasuries and the $80,000 print
Strategy paid $80,318. Strive paid $79,431. IBIT created $206 million of shares on Monday. Those three prints say the same thing in different wrappers: large buyers still want coins near $80,000 even after Warsh. A corporate 8-K is not an ETF creation, and it is not a promise the next week will look the same. Strategy can pause again. Strive's SATA and ASST issuance has to clear a market. For the price, the tell remains whether IBIT keeps creating into Friday's jobs report. For the equity, MSTR and ASST are leveraged expressions of that same bid.