Grayscale research head says Strategy could restore market confidence by selling $3B in BTC

Here’s a sentence you don’t hear every day: selling billions in Bitcoin might actually calm people down.

Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research, laid out the case in a June 4 research note. Strategy, the Michael Saylor-led company formerly known as MicroStrategy, is sitting on a growing cash-flow problem. Its annual preferred-stock dividend obligations run about $1.5 billion. Its software business brings in roughly $477 million. That’s a billion-dollar gap, and the math only works if Bitcoin cooperates.

The dividend trap

Strategy has built its entire corporate identity around hoarding Bitcoin. The company holds over 840,000 BTC, making it by far the largest corporate Bitcoin treasury on the planet. For years, the playbook was simple: issue equity, issue convertible notes, buy more Bitcoin, repeat.

But the preferred stock layer changes the equation. Strategy’s preferred shares, trading under the ticker STRC, were designed to pay dividends funded by the company’s operations and, if necessary, its Bitcoin holdings. The problem is that STRC has been trading below its anticipated $100 target price. That shortfall increases the company’s future financial obligations, creating a feedback loop that puts more pressure on the treasury.