MSTR Shares Drop 17% as Strategy’s 713K BTC Hits $17.4B Loss

Strategy’s Q4 2025 report shows a record multi‑billion loss on its Bitcoin bet, even as the company doubled down on BTC and shored up cash to ride out years of volatility.

Bitcoin Bet Sends Earnings Deep Into the Red

Bitcoin‑focused treasury company Strategy Inc has reported one of the largest quarterly losses ever seen by a U.S. public firm, underscoring both the scale of its crypto exposure and its determination to keep buying BTC through deep drawdowns.

MSTR Stock Chart Post-Q4 Collapse

MSTR shares cratered 17% in after-hours trading following the earnings release, hitting multi-month lows as Bitcoin’s year-end slide amplified the firm’s unrealized losses. The stock has shed over 30% from its late-2025 peak, trading at levels not seen since mid-2025 amid debt and dilution fears, yet remains up massively year-over-year on BTC’s long-term grind higher.

In its fourth-quarter 2025 results, Strategy disclosed a net loss of roughly 12.4–12.6 billion USD, as Bitcoin slid more than 20% from its October peak to under 88,500 USD by year-end. The bulk of that hit came from unrealized losses on the company’s massive Bitcoin stack, which flipped back into the red as prices retreated below the firm’s elevated cost basis.

As of Feb 1, 2026, Strategy held 713,502 BTC on its balance sheet, cementing its position as the largest corporate Bitcoin holder in the world. Those coins were acquired for a total of about 54.26 billion USD, implying an average purchase price of roughly 76,052 USD per BTC.

With Bitcoin recently trading only slightly above that level, the firm’s treasury has oscillated around breakeven, generating enormous quarter-to-quarter swings in reported earnings as BTC whipsaws.

War Chest Strategy: 713K BTC and a $2.25B Cash Buffer

Instead of retrenching, Strategy spent 2025 aggressively tapping capital markets to expand its Bitcoin war chest. The company raised roughly 25.3 billion USD over the year, largely via common stock and preferred share offerings, and added more than 200,000 BTC to its holdings. That made Strategy one of the largest equity issuers in the U.S. market for a second straight year, even as critics warned of heavy dilution and growing sensitivity to BTC volatility.

To address concerns around sustainability of its payout obligations, Strategy has simultaneously built a sizeable cash buffer designed to cover dividends and interest for years without selling Bitcoin. Management says a 2.25 billion USD USD reserve now provides roughly 2.5 years of coverage for dividend and interest payments at the current run‑rate, effectively ring‑fencing cash flows from short‑term BTC price shocks.

The result is a barbell structure: highly volatile reported earnings tied to mark‑to‑market Bitcoin moves, offset by a growing pool of contractual income obligations backed by a dedicated cash reserve. Supporters argue this “digital fortress” model allows long‑term BTC accumulation while insulating creditors and preferred shareholders, whereas skeptics view it as a highly leveraged bet on a single, unpredictable asset.

For Bitcoin investors, Strategy’s latest quarter is a stark reminder of how quickly paper profits can flip into double‑digit‑billion losses when BTC reverses. Yet the company’s continued accumulation, record capital raising and thicker USD reserve suggest its leadership still sees volatility as a feature, not a bug, and is preparing to ride out multiple more Bitcoin cycles without abandoning its core thesis.