Saylor Pauses BTC Buys for $1.5B Strategy Bond Buyback
Strategy routes ~$1.5B into a 2029 convertible buyback and skips its weekly bitcoin purchase. Spot ETFs lose $2.26B in two weeks; BTC trades near $77K.
Michael Saylor's Sunday line gave the desk what it had been watching for: "This week we bought bonds, not bitcoin." For the first time in weeks, Strategy did not add to its bitcoin treasury. Instead, the company is committing roughly $1.5 billion to a buyback of its 0% Convertible Senior Notes due 2029, paying about $1.38 billion in cash for the $1.50 billion face — a clean discount on paper the market had already been marking lower.
Saylor moves to the liability side
Strategy's weekly BTC purchase has been the closest thing this cycle has to a structural single-name bid. Pulling it — even for a week — matters. As of last disclosure, Strategy held 843,738 BTC acquired for roughly $63.9 billion in cost basis, including a fresh 24,869 BTC lift for $2.01 billion. The stack is worth more than $65 billion at current spot. The notable shift sits in Saylor's funding language: the bond buyback may be paid out of cash, at-the-market equity sales, "and, if needed, bitcoin sales." He has also acknowledged that limited BTC sales before year-end 2026 are not implausible under specific scenarios. That single line rewires the long-MSTR optionality story.
Spot ETFs bleed $2.26 billion in two weeks
The macro tape is not helping. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs printed $1.26 billion in outflows last week — the largest weekly redemption since January — on top of $1 billion the week before. BTC briefly traded below $75,000 over the weekend and is sitting near $77,200, down roughly 10% from the May 6 high near $82,500, and ~38% off the $126,000 October all-time high. The pressure source is familiar: U.S. 10-year yields are at the highest level since pre-GFC 2007, repricing a no-yield asset like BTC, while speculative flow rotates into crude, copper and the SpaceX June IPO.
What the desks are watching
The marginal corporate bid is paused, the ETF channel is leaking, and rates keep pinning risk premium. Until Strategy's weekly post flips back to bitcoin, the tape loses a known buyer — and Saylor's open door to "limited BTC sales" turns into a tail desks now have to price. Levels worth tracking: $75,000 as the working liquidation pivot, $70,000 as the deeper risk-off magnet if the bond cleanup widens, and any return of Strategy's weekly purchase as the cleanest local catalyst back toward $85,000.