Strategy sheds $216 million in Bitcoin in crypto hoarder’s largest sale ever

The Bitcoin giant has reversed its crypto-hoarding strategy amid a broader market downturn.

The world’s foremost Bitcoin hoarder has made its biggest crypto sale yet. Strategy announced on Monday morning that it sold $216 million worth of Bitcoin over the past week. The sale is the company’s largest liquidation of crypto in its six-year history of accumulating Bitcoin on its balance sheet, according to Strategy’s catalog of its crypto transactions. After the announcement, Strategy’s shares fell nearly 5% at market open but rebounded slightly to now $100. Bitcoin fell nearly 1% in the first hour after the announcement, then climbed back to just above $62,000, according to CoinGecko.

Strategy’s latest sell-off comes after the company announced in late June that it may sell up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin to build its cash reserves and avoid issuing more equity. In June, the company also sold 32 Bitcoin, or $2.5 million of its crypto treasury. Strategy has previously stated that selling some of its Bitcoin was a way to shore up cash and calm markets. 

The sales are an about-face for a company that has staked its business on accumulating, not dumping, Bitcoin. In 2020, Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy (then called MicroStrategy), started buying Bitcoin for his data software company’s balance sheet. The company’s holdings have since grown to roughly $52 billion, which represents about 4% of the total Bitcoin supply, according to the firm’s own data. 

“You do not sell your Bitcoin,” said Saylor, who has become one of Bitcoin’s biggest boosters, in October.

But Saylor’s Strategy has come under pressure over the past year. On Oct. 10, the crypto market saw more than $19 billion in leveraged positions evaporate in one of the largest liquidation events in the industry’s history. Bitcoin’s price has since dropped more than 43%, and MSTR’s stock has plummeted more than 37%.

Meanwhile, STRC, a perpetual preferred stock issued by Strategy, has broken its $100 peg. Strategy started issuing the form of equity, nicknamed “Stretch,” as a product that promises holders a rich biweekly dividend. Saylor has repeatedly pushed the stock as a stable offering to investors, and his company uses the money raised from selling STRC to finance new buys of Bitcoin or cover interest payouts to its creditors. On Monday, the stock trades at $89. 

Strategy isn’t the only digital asset hoarder navigating the crypto bear market. Over the past year, a wave of Strategy copycats have stuffed public companies with crypto in a bid to lift their share prices, but that trade has largely lost steam. Solana‑hoarder Solmate has shed nearly all its value, leaving backers sitting on steep paper losses, while Cantor Fitzgerald’s BSTR Bitcoin vehicle has raced to keep a SPAC deal afloat amid reduced investor appetite. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com