Strategy Launches $42 Billion ATM Offering to Expand Bitcoin Holdings, Facing $3.2 Billion Unrealized Losses and Dividend Pressure
To raise funds for more Bitcoin purchases, MicroStrategy (Stock Symbol: MSTR) continues to diversify its financing channels. The company announced a new “At-The-Market Offering (ATM)” plan targeting $42 billion in capital raises for its common and preferred shares.
According to an 8-K filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, Strategy will sell up to $21 billion worth of MSTR common stock through this new ATM plan. It will also issue up to $21 billion in STRC preferred stock and $2.1 billion in STRK preferred stock.
Unlike traditional large-scale capital raises, ATM offerings allow Strategy to sell shares gradually at market prices. Since early last year, Strategy has frequently relied on such fundraising tools to support its “Bitcoin accumulation strategy,” establishing an increasingly large issuance mechanism, including ATM financing linked to preferred stock products like STRF and STRD.
With these measures, Strategy currently has a potential issuance capacity of hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and equity-linked products.
While expanding its fundraising scale, Strategy’s Bitcoin accumulation efforts have not slowed.
Another filing shows that last week, Strategy spent about $76.6 million to buy 1,031 Bitcoin, increasing its holdings to 762,099 BTC. The funds for this purchase came from the proceeds of previous MSTR stock sales.
So far, Strategy has spent approximately $57.7 billion on Bitcoin. However, based on recent market prices, the overall position has fallen below its cost basis. Data platform SaylorTracker reports that Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings are currently showing an unrealized loss (floating loss) of over $3.2 billion.
This ATM fundraising plan is part of Strategy’s “42/42 Plan,” which aims to raise $84 billion by 2027 through stock and convertible bond issuance to continuously increase Bitcoin holdings.
However, this extreme leverage operation hides significant risks.
Analyst Ivan Wu from The Block pointed out that if the entire $21 billion STRC preferred stock plan is utilized, Strategy would face an additional annual dividend obligation of about $2.4 billion. Including the existing approximately $1 billion dividend burden, Strategy’s current cash reserves are only enough to cover about eight months of dividend payments.
Adding to the concern, Strategy’s stock price has fallen sharply from its 2025 peak, and the premium over its Bitcoin net asset value (NAV) has been shrinking. This suggests that if market conditions weaken and the premium disappears, future equity issuance for fundraising will become much less effective.