Shares of the two most aggressive corporate bitcoin buyers rallied hard on Wednesday as the coin touched its highest price since 7 October, with Strategy climbing more than 7% to $153.48 and Strive jumping 13% to $30.75. The moves extended a strong week for both names: Strategy rose nearly 5% on Tuesday and Strive added almost 6%, on top of a 6% gain on Monday, giving the Dallas firm three straight green sessions, according to Bitcoin.com News and Yahoo Finance data. Bitcoin itself climbed more than 2% to trade around $84,500 and printed $84,807 on Wednesday afternoon in New York before giving the move back overnight in Asia. Treasury stocks have become the equity market's leveraged bet on the coin, and this week showed the gearing working in both directions.
Strategy's small buy and its big buyback
Strategy disclosed on Monday that it bought 267 bitcoin for about $22.1 million between 12 and 18 October, paying an average of $82,900 per coin and funding the purchase mainly by selling 140,872 common shares, as Fortune reported. The addition takes its stack to 848,517 bitcoin, a holding we last updated when the company crossed 847,666 coins in late September. The more consequential number may be on the other side of the balance sheet: Strategy spent roughly $193.1 million repurchasing its STRC preferred shares and expanded its digital credit securities repurchase authorization from $2 billion to $3 billion, while reporting about $5.28 billion in dollar-denominated assets earmarked to support preferred dividends and interest payments.
Strive's new money goes to work
Strive is now investing the proceeds of the preferred sale that priced last week at $630 million and settled on Tuesday. The company holds 36,818 bitcoin after buying 4,045 coins in the week to 16 October, a stack worth roughly $3.1 billion at current prices. The new SATS preferred, which pays a 15% annual dividend on its $100 stated amount, works out to an effective yield of about 16.7% at the $90 offer price, with daily cash dividends due to begin on 9 November subject to board approval. The rally leaves most listed bitcoin treasuries back in unrealized profit above an aggregate cost basis near $80,000, though broader accumulation across the sector has slowed to a crawl. The risk runs the other way too: the same financing machinery that amplifies gains when bitcoin rises will magnify losses if the $82,500 support gives way.