Michael Saylor has long advised investors to "never sell your Bitcoin," but during a recent appearance, he changed his stance. At the Miami Consensus conference, the Strategic Chairman explained on the Street Wolves podcast why the company occasionally sells portions of its Bitcoin holdings.
Strategy currently holds approximately 818,000 bitcoins, valued at nearly $65 billion, making it the largest corporate bitcoin holder globally. However, Saylor stated that demonstrating a willingness to sell a small amount of bitcoin is crucial for protecting the company’s balance sheet and maintaining bitcoin’s status as a liquid corporate asset.
“If the market believes we will never sell it, credit rating agencies will say, ‘Well, then I guess it’s not an asset,’ ” Thiel explained in the interview.
Why might this strategy lead to selling Bitcoin?
Thiel stated that Bitcoin provides Strategy with $20 billion to $100 billion in market liquidity, funds that are independent of the stock or bond markets. He noted that rejecting this liquidity could actually weaken the company’s financial structure.
Saylor clarified that Strategy will only conduct small-scale strategic sales of Bitcoin. “We may only sell 20 basis points of Bitcoin,” he said, adding that the company is likely to repurchase five to ten times that amount of Bitcoin within the same month.
“If you sell $100 million worth of Bitcoin in the same month but buy $1 billion or $2 billion worth of Bitcoin, we are still net buyers,” Saidler said.
He also explained that occasionally selling Bitcoin can help fund STRC dividends or unlock billions of dollars in tax credits tied to high-cost Bitcoin purchases.
Meanwhile, Strategy CEO Phong Le told CNBC that the company would only sell Bitcoin if it is more beneficial to shareholders than issuing additional shares.
STRC and yield tokens enter a period of rapid growth
One of the key discussion points was STRC, the preferred stock product of Strategy, which Saylor said grew from zero to $8.5 billion in just eight months.
According to Saylor, DeFi platforms have tokenized STRC as yield-generating digital assets, and projects such as Apex and Saturn are reportedly attracting millions of dollars in daily inflows.
Saylor believes that digital yield products could become a multi-billion-dollar industry within months as investors move away from low-yield stablecoins and traditional money markets.
“In summary, we are in a phase of rapid growth,” said Thaler.
Bitcoin treasury companies face market pressure
At the time of Thiel's remarks, several Bitcoin custody companies and miners sold off Bitcoin amid the broader cryptocurrency downturn.
Public miners including MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms, and Core Scientific sold over 32,000 bitcoins in the first quarter of 2026 to help fund the expansion of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Meanwhile, small strategic treasury firms such as Nakamoto, Empery Digital, and Sequans were forced to sell portions of their Bitcoin holdings after the price dropped nearly 50% from its historic high of nearly $126,000.
Saylor also directly addressed the issue of long-term Bitcoin accumulation in the interview.
“I will keep buying Bitcoin at these highs,” he said. “Whether Bitcoin is at $200,000, $1 million, $2 million, or even $16 million, I’m happy to buy.”