Written by: ChandlerZ , Foresight News
On June 1, Strategy filed an 8-K document with the SEC, disclosing that it sold 32 bitcoins between May 26 and 31 at an average price of $77,135, totaling approximately $2.5 million. Following the sale, the company still holds 843,706 BTC, with a total cost of $63.87 billion and an average price of $75,699.
The 32 BTC represent 0.004% of the total holdings, and the $2.5 million is equivalent to Strategy's average purchase volume over the past 12 months, taking only one and a half days. From a financial perspective, this trade makes little sense. However, it breaks much more than the amount it realizes. Since its initial Bitcoin purchase in August 2020, Strategy has only sold once: in December 2022, it sold 704 BTC for $11.8 million at an average price of $16,776, with the aim of creating a tax-loss harvesting, buying back 810 BTC two days later at an even lower price. That sale was essentially a tax operation, not a true reduction in holdings.
But this time it's different; the $2.5 million was explicitly stated as being used to pay preferred stock dividends, and Strategy has no intention of buying it back.
Dividend payments are due.
Strategy began issuing preferred stock intensively in early 2025, with STRK yielding an annual interest rate of 8%, STRF 10%, STRD 10%, and STRC 11.5%. The four series combined have paid out more than $693 million in dividends to date.
The logic behind these preferred shares is that investors entrust money to Strategy, which uses it to buy Bitcoin and then uses its cash reserves and operating income to pay fixed-rate dividends. If Bitcoin rises, the mNAV premium widens, and Strategy can continue to issue new shares to raise funds and roll over the debt. If Bitcoin falls or trades sideways, the dividend obligation doesn't disappear, but the financing window narrows.
Micro-strategy Bitcoin accumulation pace
In December 2025, Strategy established a $2.25 billion cash reserve specifically to cover dividends and debt repayments, which at the time could last for about 30 months. However, by May 31, 2026, this reserve had dwindled to $900 million, a loss of $1.35 billion in six months.
During the Q1 earnings call, Strategy CEO Phong Le publicly mentioned "disciplined sale of bitcoin" as a capital management tool for the first time. At the time, few paid attention to this statement; in retrospect, it foreshadowed the sale of 32 BTC.
On February 2, 2025, Saylor tweeted "Never sell your bitcoin," a tweet that was widely retweeted after the 8-K disclosure. In a subsequent post, he only discussed STRC's product positioning, stating that Strategy's goal was to make STRC the world's best credit instrument, completely avoiding the topic of selling bitcoins.
MSTR shares fell about 6% that day. Mizuho maintained its buy rating but lowered its target price from $320 to $265. Most analysts believe the $2.5 million sale has no substantial financial impact, but the key significance of this event is that it signals a potential scenario: if cash reserves continue to be depleted and dividend obligations remain unchanged, future sales may not stop at 32 tokens.
Polymarket's last $100 million word game
Strategy's sell-off time also triggered a prediction market on Polymarket.
The question in this market is whether Strategy will sell Bitcoin before May 31st. The total trading volume has already exceeded $111 million. The 8-K filing shows that the transactions occurred between May 26th and 31st, with the filing itself recording a cutoff time of "4:00 PM ET on May 31, 2026." However, the 8-K was only submitted to the SEC on June 1st, and the public only learned of this after the deadline.
Those who voted "Yes" argued that the transaction occurred before the deadline, with the 8-K clearly stating May 31st; those who voted "No" argued that there was no public information proving a sale occurred before the deadline, and therefore, according to the rules, the decision should be "No." After both "No" proposals were challenged, the dispute escalated to UMA's token voting arbitration.
Polymarket subsequently added a note to the page stating, "Consensus from MSTR, on-chain data, or reliable reports has not confirmed that Strategy sold Bitcoin within the market-defined timeframe. Confirmation obtained outside the market-defined timeframe is not acceptable."
Behind this controversy lies a deeper problem with Polymarket's arbitration mechanism. A Wall Street Journal investigation in May found that in most of Polymarket's disputed markets, more than half of the UMA voting power is concentrated in the hands of the 10 largest wallets, and about 60% of active voters are linked to Polymarket accounts. In roughly one out of every five disputes, a voter simultaneously holds a position in the contract being adjudicated. Since 2026, Polymarket has generated over 1,150 disputed markets, exceeding the total number for the entire year of 2025.
It's not just Strategy that's selling; Bitcoin has fallen below $72,000.
Strategy's 8-K disclosure, coupled with an already weak market environment, caused Bitcoin to fall below $72,000 on June 1, hitting its lowest level since April 13. CoinShares data shows that digital asset investment products saw net outflows of $1.67 billion last week, the second-largest weekly outflow in 2026. Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net outflows of $2.3 billion in May, the largest monthly net outflow this year. Digital asset management assets have fallen to approximately $141 billion, a low since the beginning of the year.
Strategy sold 32 BTC, but it wasn't the first Bitcoin treasury firm to act. Q1 data shows that selling has become a collective behavior. MARA Holdings sold 15,133 BTC between March 4th and 25th, cashing out approximately $1.1 billion, mostly used to repurchase convertible bonds maturing in 2030 and 2031. Riot Platforms sold 3,778 BTC during the same period, cashing out $289.5 million, reducing its holdings from 19,223 BTC to 15,680 BTC, a decrease of 18%. David Bailey's Nakamoto Holdings sold 284 BTC in March, representing about 5% of its holdings. Empery Digital sold 370 BTC in April to repay loans. Genius Group liquidated its last 84 BTC, repaying $8.5 million in debt.
MARA, Riot, and Nakamoto alone sold a combined total of over 19,000 BTC in Q1. CryptoQuant's on-chain data shows that Bitcoin's apparent demand fell to -63,000 at the end of March. This negative apparent demand (a measure of total demand relative to changes in new output) indicates a deep market contraction, with overall selling pressure significantly outweighing buying pressure.
Some companies have gone beyond simply selling tokens; they've abandoned the treasury model altogether. Forum Markets (formerly ETHZilla) liquidated approximately $114 million worth of ETH at the beginning of the year, shifting its focus to tokenization. VivoPower, which originally planned to establish an XRP treasury, transformed itself in February to focus on data centers and AI infrastructure, disposing of all its XRP holdings in the process.
On May 28, French semiconductor company Sequans Communications confirmed that it had fully repaid its convertible bonds by selling its Bitcoin holdings, and also plans to gradually liquidate its remaining 658 Bitcoins. The company's Bitcoin holdings peaked at 3,234.
Sequans had previously announced its intention to accumulate over 3,000 Bitcoins as long-term reserve assets. However, this so-called "long-term" goal has ultimately lasted less than a year. The company's stock (ticker symbol SQNS) has fallen by 77% this year, and its cumulative decline over the past five years has reached a staggering 97%.
The business model of Bitcoin treasury companies was validated during the upward cycle in the second half of 2025. Rising Bitcoin prices drove up the mNAV premium, allowing companies to raise funds by issuing new shares or convertible bonds to buy more Bitcoin. This further inflated the price and premium, creating a positive cycle. After the market peaked last October, this flywheel reversed. Falling prices compressed the premium, narrowing the financing window. Dividend and debt repayment obligations did not decrease due to the price drop, making selling Bitcoin the most direct source of liquidity. Bitwise statistics show that as of the end of Q1, listed companies held approximately 1.15 million BTC, accounting for 5.47% of the total supply. This volume itself poses a risk; if multiple treasury companies are forced to reduce their holdings within the same timeframe, they could become both the largest buyers of Bitcoin and the most concentrated source of selling pressure.
Very few companies are still buying at the moment. Strive bought approximately 1,944 BTC in May, spending about $150 million, while Metaplanet bought 5,075 BTC in early April. Strategy itself was still buying in May, accumulating over 25,000 BTC that month, worth over $2 billion.
The fact that Strategy spent 2 billion to buy tokens while simultaneously paying out 2.5 million in dividends suggests that the company is far from facing a liquidity crisis. However, the significance of the 32 tokens is that even the largest holders are beginning to acknowledge that selling is an option in their toolbox.
