Bitcoin purchase for $5.4 billion - MicroStrategy continues to extend its lead

MicroStrategy, by far the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has struck again. The publicly traded company acquired an additional 55,500 Bitcoin for USD 5.4 billion at an average purchase price of USD 97,862 per BTC.

MicroStrategy raised the funds through various capital procurement methods: USD 2.97 billion came from the issue of convertible bonds and USD 2.46 billion from the sale of newly issued company shares.

Despite the dilution of shares, the company founded by Michael Saylor has succeeded in continuously increasing the ratio of BTC per share, the so-called "BTC yield", significantly - by 59.3 percent this year alone.

As a result of the latest purchases, the US software company owns 386,700 BTC or 1.84 percent of all units ever in existence - a gigantic holding with a current equivalent value of around 37 billion US dollars.

This is the third Monday in a row that MicroStrategy has announced that it bought several billion dollars worth of Bitcoin in the previous week. On November 11 for just over $2 billion and on November 18 for $4.6 billion, with the company raising the funds by issuing new shares each time. This time, however, it also used convertible bonds.

Michael Saylor, the founder of MicroStrategy, always posted on the platform 𝕏 the day before the last three official announcements that the website saylortracker.com, which marks the company's Bitcoin purchases with green dots on the Bitcoin chart, needed more such dots. Saylor was thus somewhat premature in announcing that the public company had added more.

The latest Bitcoin acquisitions are by far the largest MicroStrategy has made in the more than four years since it began its Bitcoin strategy. At the end of last month, the company revealed in its quarterly results that it intends to continue buying Bitcoin for a total of USD 42 billion over the next three years - Blocktrainer.de reported.

Of the USD 42 billion envisaged in the so-called "21/21 plan", half of which is to be financed by issuing new shares and the other half by issuing bonds, "only" less than USD 30 billion is still outstanding after this month's purchases.

The fact that MicroStrategy has bought so much Bitcoin so early on is probably primarily due to the sharp rise in the share price, which significantly favors raising funds in this way. Since the start of the year, the share price has risen by around 500% - significantly more than the price of Bitcoin itself.

The performance of the share is also relevant to the attractiveness of convertible bonds, as these give the lender the option of exchanging the securities for a predefined number of company shares at maturity. If this is more lucrative for the bondholders than recovering the loan amount, MicroStrategy does not have to raise capital to repay the debt.

In the context of the current sharp rise in the price of Bitcoin, it is not only MicroStrategy that is stepping up its Bitcoin purchases. Other listed companies are also investing in the asset on a large scale or launching their BTC strategy - Blocktrainer.de reported.

Last week, for example, MARA Holdings issued convertible bonds for USD 1 billion to buy Bitcoin with just over USD 550 million - Blocktrainer.de reported. MARA is the public company with the second-largest Bitcoin holdings after MicroStrategy. The mining company now owns around 33,875 BTC.

Semler Scientific, a listed healthcare company with a current market capitalization of more than USD 500 million, also announced the purchase of an additional 297 Bitcoin for around USD 29 million today. The public company, which has been using Bitcoin since May of this year, now holds 1,570 BTC on its balance sheet. Like MicroStrategy, Semler Scientific is also issuing new shares in order to invest in the asset.

MicroStrategy is therefore no longer alone with its leveraged Bitcoin strategy. However, although more and more companies are copying the "first mover", it continues to extend its lead. Even if sooner or later heavyweights such as Microsoft discover Bitcoin for themselves, it can be assumed that they will no longer manage to accumulate a larger portfolio than MicroStrategy.