Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases collapse: ‘company arms itself against bear market’

Strategy, the company with the most Bitcoin (BTC) on its balance sheet, has applied the handbrake on its BTC purchases. According to a new report from CryptoQuant, the sharp pullback points to one thing: the company is preparing for a long, tough bear market.

Strategy’s Bitcoin-motor hapert

“Strategy’s Bitcoin Buys Collapsed in 2025,” CryptoQuant said in a new report yesterday.

It pointed to a dramatic monthly decline in purchases since late 2024, from a peak of 134 new bitcoins in November 2024 to just 9,100 bitcoins a year later.

In the months of August, September and October, even much less money was thrown away. In November, the usual stock-in-trade took place in just one week: the company announced on November 17 that it had purchased 8,178 bitcoins the previous week for an amount of $835.6 million.

“A buffer of 24 months makes one thing clear: they are preparing for the bear market,” the CryptoQuant analysts conclude. By this they refer to the new dividend reserve that was established this week.

$1.44 billion in cash will cover 12 months of dividend and debt payments, with plans to extend it to 24 months.

CEO Phong Le emphasized that the company now has “more flexibility than ever” to continue accumulating Bitcoin. In a podcast, he did say that selling bitcoin would be “mathematically justified” if the company’s market value falls below the value of their bitcoin holdings.

But the newly created dollar reserve is precisely intended to prevent Strategy from ending up in that situation. This buffer ensures that:

1. Strategy does not have to raise capital at bad times, because all dividend and interest payments are covered. In this way, the company buys time, as it were.
2. The company’s value is less likely to dip below the value of the bitcoin stock, because investors have more confidence in its liquidity position.

New danger lurking

While Strategy hedges strategically, another risk looms. Index builder MSCI wants to exclude companies where 50 percent or more of the balance sheet consists of crypto. For Strategy, this would mean being banned from major indexes, potentially losing billions in passive inflows.

Chairman and Bitcoin maximalist Michael Saylor said the company is “actively in discussions” with MSCI about the possible new policy that would take effect in January.