Strategy said on Monday that Strategy bought 267 BTC for $22.1 million last week and repurchased $193.1 million of STRC preferred stock. An SEC filing shows that Strategy paid an average of $82,900 per Bitcoin, including fees, between October 12 and 18. Strategy now holds 848,517 BTC, acquired for $64.02 billion at an average of $75,446 per coin.
Strategy funded the Bitcoin purchase with $22 million raised by selling 140,872 MSTR common shares through the at-the-market offering program. Strategy supplied the remaining $0.1 million from cash. Strategy sold no preferred stock during the week. Strategy repurchased 1,938,780 shares of STRC, the company's variable-rate Stretch preferred stock, using $193.1 million of USD Cash. Strategy sets aside USD Cash for general purposes, including Bitcoin purchases.
Strategy's board increased the authorization under the digital credit securities repurchase program, which covers preferred stock, from $2 billion to $3 billion. Last week's buyback had left $354.8 million available under the program. The program had $1.16 billion available as of October 18 after this week's purchases and the authorization increase. Strategy's separate MSTR common stock repurchase program has $1 billion remaining.
Strategy also used $45.5 million from the USD Reserve to pay dividends. Strategy designates the USD Reserve to cover preferred dividends and debt interest. The USD Reserve held $4.83 billion as of October 18, down from $4.88 billion a week earlier. USD Cash held $447.3 million as of October 18, down from $640.5 million a week earlier.
Strategy bought 250 BTC at an average of $86,194 per coin the week before the latest purchase. The latest Bitcoin purchase was similar in size to last week's $21.5 million purchase. Strategy spent $142.7 million on Bitcoin in the last week of September. Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor hinted at the latest purchase in a social media post on Sunday, writing, "We found room for more orange."
The latest STRC repurchase extends a series of weekly buybacks. Strategy repurchased $192.4 million of STRC the previous week. Strategy repurchased $176 million of STRC the week before that, when Strategy also bought $29 million in Bitcoin and posted a $21 billion third-quarter gain. Strategy repurchased $151.7 million of STRC in the last week of September as Bitcoin holdings reached a then-record 847,666 BTC.
Strategy faces possible removal from MSCI's widely tracked equity indexes. MSCI finalized a rule on October 15 that makes non-operating companies ineligible for the Global Investable Market Indexes from the close of November 30. The rule treats companies whose balance sheets are dominated by a single asset as non-operating companies. MSCI will publish the list of affected companies on November 11. Removal would force funds tracking the indexes to sell the affected shares. Saylor had urged MSCI to abandon the rule, which Saylor called "discriminatory".