Strategy would have held 843,303 BTC on 12 October if it had largely avoided using STRC preferred stock to fund bitcoin purchases during 2026, according to research and brokerage firm K33.
The company held 848,250 BTC on that date, meaning the alternative strategy would have left it with 4,947 fewer bitcoin despite avoiding the preferred-stock financing.
In a report, K33 head of research Vetle Lunde calculated the hypothetical balance by excluding the roughly $7.5bn raised by Strategy through STRC during the first half of 2026.
He assumed the company would instead have used the $4bn allocated to its dollar reserve between May and August, along with $1.6bn spent on STRC buybacks, to purchase bitcoin. K33 also assumed Strategy would have avoided 90% of its STRC dividend payments and directed the resulting funds towards bitcoin. The calculation kept MSTR issuance unchanged and was based on weekly average bitcoin prices.
The preferred shares allowed Strategy to raise money for bitcoin acquisitions without issuing additional MSTR shares. However, they also created dividend commitments that the company must continue to meet.
Although the financing helped Strategy buy almost 100,000 BTC in the first half of the year, Lunde challenged the merits of the approach.
“Was the pref model a mistake? We believe the answer to that question is yes,” he wrote.
Dividend costs rise
K33 estimated that Strategy’s annual preferred dividend obligations had reached $1.56bn, compared with about $830m earlier in the year. The expansion of STRC accounted for $725m of the increase, according to the firm.
Using a bitcoin price of $83,000, Lunde calculated that the additional annual dividend expense represented about 8,740 BTC. He estimated that this cost would be enough to eliminate the 4,947 BTC gap between Strategy’s actual holdings and K33’s hypothetical total in approximately seven months.
Strategy’s dollar reserve offers some protection against the dividend commitments. K33 estimated that the reserve could cover about 42 months of payments, making it less likely that the company would need to sell bitcoin.
However, Lunde questioned the cost of retaining the cash. His comparison assumed the reserve generated a 4% return, while STRC carried a 12% coupon. On that basis, he argued that issuing common stock would be a more efficient way to finance future bitcoin purchases.
Strategy has bought back STRC shares heavily in recent weeks. The stock closed at $99.90 on 13 October, just below its $100 par value.
In September, the company proposed switching STRC and three other preferred stocks to daily dividend payments. The change still requires shareholder approval, while Strategy has said it would not increase its regular dividend obligations.
Bitcoin was down 0.3% on Wednesday at $82,863, according to The Block’s prices page.
