This week two different Saylorbois hurled this insane "whatabout7%BPS, bruh?!" response at me. Alas, the Den frustration at the retarded shitcoin show exceeded what a lousy little purple monkey can bear... #1528815
Strategy clowns can't countStrategy clowns can't count
Alas, what else is new?
If you go to Strategy's dashboard it says, at press time, that the BPS ("bitcoin-per-share") is 206,388 sats per share. MSTR, in the meantime, is trading at $94.5; since bitcoin trades at $64,667 per Bitbo, we can conclude that each common share is trading with a 41% premium to the underlying bitcoin. OMG AMAZING BUSINESS MODEL.
We can get even more aggressive by dividing the 843,775 BTC currently on the balance sheet by the total outstanding commons (379,160,000 MSTR) per July 20 and get the very beautiful 13% yield YTD! Annualized, that's like 21%!!... (No, Grok says 25.6%; I ain't doing that math)
Anyway, the difficulty in a business that prints paper, buys bitcoin, and issues claims on said bitcoin is to figure out how much value accrues to the shareholder at the end of that financial wizardry. A totally random bagholder of MSTR (that infamous engineless car...#1530104) -- let's call him @BlokchainB -- stands last in line in the grand financialized edifice that our lord and savior Saylor has erected.
In no way do those 843,775 BTC belong to the MSTR bagholders; the 206,388 sats per share figure comes from dividing 843,775 by the "Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding" which at least takes account of the dilutive impact from presumed future converts. But it ignores the prefs, which Strategy must service, and the now increasingly relevant cash reserve since Strategy is stacking melting-ice-cube fiat on its balance sheet. #1530104
And yes, I understand that this isn't how Strategy formally defines BPS
...but that makes them retarded, not my numbers wrong.
OK, complete rundown and testing of hypothesis: 5.8% (which Grain of Salt gave me) or 7% BPS year-to-date (which Anders told me).
Jan 1
- Strategy HODLed 672,500 BTC
- Market value = $58.854bn
- (nondiluted) shares outstanding: 346,223,000
- Cash: 2.3bn
- debt: 8.158bn
- prefs: 6.92bn
Prefs don't have to be repaid, I understand that, but as we've all seen this year, they carry interest expense (which the company in some sense chooses to pay) and they do this by diluting MSTR. Ergo, it's functionally and economically the same as a convertible debt. And at liquidation, they're ahead of bagholders, so we should net them out.
In 2025, we increased our Bitcoin Per Share (BPS) from 158,826 sats/shares at the start of the year to 194,986 sats/share at the end of the year, generating 22.8% BTC Yield
...stated the 2025 annual report very proudly. If it's 206,388 sats now and it was 194,986 at year-end, of course 5.8% is what a middle-school student would conclude as well.
Doing my market-based, debt-and-pref adjusted equity claim on the business' assets, we instead get
CASH + BITCOIN = [58.8bn + 2.3bn], subtract prefs and debt: - 8.158bn - 6.92bn equal 46bn of value
Divided by 346,223,000 outstanding commons, that's $133 per share. Or in bitcoin terms at the end-of-year bitcoin price, MSTR had 152,071 sats per share.Divided by 346,223,000 outstanding commons, that's $133 per share. Or in bitcoin terms at the end-of-year bitcoin price, MSTR had 152,071 sats per share.
Logic here being that if I run up my and my new renter's credit cards to market buy, let's say bitcoin and gold bars, my "bitcoin-and-gold per household member" doesn't magically go up. Or rather: saying that it increased is pointless and misleading since all I did was market buy asset on credit. Duh. (Even if my credit card company is kind and never want the balance paid off as long as I keep paying interest every month.)
July 20
- Strategy HODLed 843,775 BTC
- market value = 54.5bn (lol...)
- (non-diluted) shares outstanding: 379,160,000 (edit: I double-counted the last batch here, like a total clown -.-)
- cash: $3.225bn (there might be some more in the business tills we don't know about... we shall find out next Thursday when they report Q2)
- debt: $6.7bn
- prefs: $15.3bn (a little unsure of the exact euro prefs, STRE, outstanding since the website doesn't report it)
Doing my market-based, debt-and-pref adjusted equity claim on the business' assets -- which is what the bagholder of MSTR is entitled to -- I get
CASH + BITCOIN = [$3.225bn + 54.5bn], subtract prefs and debt = 35.7bn of value
Divided by 379,160,000 outstanding commons, that's $94.22 per share. Or in bitcoin terms at the July 20 BTC/USD price, that's 145,857 sats per shareDivided by 379,160,000 outstanding commons, that's $94.22 per share. Or in bitcoin terms at the July 20 BTC/USD price, that's 145,857 sats per share
MSTR currently trades at $94.5. Who said markets weren't efficient?! #971152
Also, that's a NEGATIVE bitcoin-per-share development of 4.1% YTD.
Congrats, if you're an MSTR bagholder you're owning an ETF. (Slavery with extra steps.)
Bitcoin at year-end: 87,515 vs today (July 20), 64600 = -26.2%
Total MSTR fundamental value change since year-end ($133 -> 94.22) = -29.2%.
LOL. This is a dilutive, value-extracting machinery that, at best, approximates a high-expense bitcoin ETF.
Hm... I thought for a minute that I had double-counted the conversion portion of STRK
but I don’t think so. What Strategy is doing in “Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding” is converting away the 1.4bn of outstanding liabilities into MSTR at over 10x the current market price (= where they convert), thus be waaaaay cheaper for Strategy to dilute than is fair, since the company pays the interest on that pref not out of diluted-MSTR-at-$1,000 but out of current-actual-MSTR-at-$94.
Strategy is the opposite of staying humble
Holy crap man, I have a phd in economics and this makes my head spin. But big picture seems to be that despite their financial chicanery... the market knows better?
it makes your head spin because your eyes are doing theatrics to compute the varying sizes and degrees of no simple text
Yes, that was an impressive exercise
Thank you 🙏
This comment really made me smile. Feel all warm inside
I read this twice and I still don't follow parts, but this part was clear:
Somehow, last summer this was the coolest thing ever and this summer no one likes it at all. Poor Saylor.
Maybe he'll recover it all by selling forkcoins...
Hahaha yeah, gotta go with the flow. Take what you can get!
I'd agree that the numbers are a mess. One pet peeve of mine is companies counting the additional leverage they are taking out, immediately as bps yield.
Wouldn't one expect negative returns relative to an asset, when leveraging an asset through a bear market? If your assets aren't going up you loose acount value relative to those assets because you need to pay for margin. Most pro LBE people I see seem to understand that. Though I guess arguing a company has positive bps when it doesn't certainly isn't helping their case.
Interesting breakdown. BPS means a lot less if liabilities get brushed aside.
Debt, dilution and preferreds matter. Ignoring them paints an incomplete picture.
Love seeing someone dig into the balance sheet instead of repeating talking points.
That ETF with extra steps line made me laugh :))
Good reminder that financial engineering isn't the same as creating value.
TL DR!
Saylorbois will win!