Strategy’s transformation from relentless Bitcoin accumulator to active seller is the story markets are watching this week, and according to one closely followed analyst, investors are underestimating just how much of its stack the company is now authorized to sell.
Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, pointed out that the $135 million portion of last week’s Bitcoin sales used directly to fund immediate dividend payouts “doesn’t count against the $1.25B Monetization Program,” which remained fully untapped according to the company’s latest 8-K filing. The reason, he explained, is that the framework caps reserve-replenishment sales only, leaving direct-to-dividend liquidations entirely outside that specific bucket. His conclusion: “MSTR has more BTC selling capacity than the ‘$1.25B’ headline suggests.”
The mechanics: A reserve and a monetization program
To understand Sigel’s point requires unpacking the framework Strategy unveiled on June 29 as part of a new “Digital Credit Capital Framework.” At its center is a USD Reserve, a dollar buffer, worth $2.55 billion as of July 5, that exists specifically to fund dividends on Strategy’s preferred stock and interest on its debt.
To feed that reserve and meet those obligations, Strategy’s board authorized a BTC Monetization Program permitting Bitcoin sales for several distinct purposes: to raise up to $1.25 billion for the USD Reserve; to fund preferred dividends and interest directly, or replenish the reserve after such payments, when management deems it more advantageous than issuing stock; and to support buybacks.
Crucially, the filing sets no single overall cap on Bitcoin sales: the $1.25 billion applies only to the reserve-funding bucket, and anything beyond the board’s stated purposes simply requires further board approval. That is exactly Sigel’s argument: the widely quoted $1.25 billion is one lane, not the whole highway.
Saylor is now selling Bitcoin
The nuance matters because the bigger story is the direction itself. Strategy disclosed that it sold roughly 3,588 BTC for about $216 million between June 29 and July 5 to fund preferred-stock distributions and top up its reserve. Just five weeks earlier, the company had sold a mere 32 BTC, its first disclosed net disposal ever. The latest sale is more than a hundred times larger, and it was executed at a loss: a portion of the July Bitcoin went out the door near $60,773 per coin, well below Strategy’s average purchase price of $75,476.
For a company whose founder, Michael Saylor, spent years insisting Strategy would never sell its Bitcoin, that is a meaningful shift in posture. The firm still holds an enormous 843,775 BTC acquired for about $63.69 billion, but with Bitcoin trading below its cost basis, Strategy booked an $8.32 billion loss on digital assets for the second quarter, and it is now parting with coins at a loss to cover cash obligations.
Why: The dividend machine
The pressure is structural. Grayscale’s Head of Research, Zach Pandl, has estimated Strategy’s annual dividend load at around $1.5 billion, a bill its underlying software business cannot come close to covering, sitting atop roughly $15.5 billion in notional preferred stock and $6.7 billion in convertible notes. The company recently raised the dividend rate on its STRC preferred to 12% a year, adding to the burden.
Historically, Strategy funded those commitments by issuing new shares. But that route has narrowed. As MSTR’s premium to the value of its Bitcoin holdings compressed, selling stock at the market became dilutive rather than accretive, and the company reported no such share sales and no buybacks during the period. With the equity spigot throttled, Bitcoin sales became the alternative; which is precisely the dynamic critics of the treasury model have long warned about.
Prudent management, or a forced seller?
Wall Street is split. Analysts at JPMorgan cautioned that formalizing a Bitcoin-sale policy introduces “avoidable two-way risk,” since Strategy can now act as both a buyer and a seller of the asset it helped popularize as a corporate reserve. The bearish reading, echoed by long-time skeptics, is a feedback loop: if Bitcoin and MSTR stay depressed and equity issuance remains unattractive, the dividend machine steadily eats into the Bitcoin stack.
The bullish case is that this is disciplined liability management, not distress. Analysts at Bernstein argued that Strategy’s balance sheet makes genuine forced selling unlikely, noting the company still bought roughly 175,000 BTC for about $14 billion earlier in 2026 — leaving it a large net buyer for the year. Saylor himself framed the new framework as a “capital management toolkit,” designed to strengthen credit quality and reduce preferred dividends when accretive, “while maintaining our commitment to long-term Bitcoin exposure.”
Why it matters
As the largest corporate Bitcoin holder and the template for nearly 200 public companies that have since adopted the model, Strategy is the bellwether for the entire Bitcoin-treasury trade. A shift that turns it into a recurring, telegraphed seller, even a modest one, changes the supply calculus that bulls have leaned on, and it puts the spotlight on the leverage and dividend obligations underpinning the whole sector.
Sigel’s observation sharpens the point: anyone tracking how much Bitcoin Strategy might sell should not stop at the $1.25 billion reserve program, because the dividend-funding sales running alongside it expand the real figure. As one analysis put it, if Bitcoin recovers, this week is a footnote; if it doesn’t, the question becomes how much of the stack the dividend machine consumes first.
Also Read: Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin Sell-off Continues — On-Chain Data Flags Another 513 BTC Transfer
