MicroStrategy Increases Bitcoin Holdings By More Than $615M Ahead Of Spot ETF Approval Deadline

American software and business intelligence company MicroStrategy has spent more than $615 million to add additional Bitcoin to its holdings, retaining its status as the largest corporate holder of the world's oldest crypto asset.

On Wednesday, executive chairman Michael Saylor shared on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that MicroStrategy added 14,620 BTC to its Bitcoin stash worth approximately $615.7 million.

The latest purchase places MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings at 189,150 BTC, acquired at an aggregate price of $5.895 billion at an average price of around $31,168 per BTC.

"MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 14,620 BTC for ~$615.7 million at an average price of $42,110 per #bitcoin. As of 12/26/23, @MicroStrategy now hodls 189,150 $BTC acquired for ~$5.9 billion at an average price of $31,168 per bitcoin," Saylor said in a tweet.

MicroStrategy was founded nearly 35 years ago by Saylor and Sanju Bansal and for more than three decades existed as a software company focused on business intelligence. It surged to popularity this year because of its Bitcoin holdings and the impressive skyrocket of the value of its stock to as high as 337%.

The company's Bitcoin holding is mainly attributed to Saylor, who started looking for a "high-growth digital monopoly" MicroStrategy could invest in amid the government-induced inflation and a tech-driven deflation, which made it challenging for companies except the Magnificent Seven to see consistent and substantial growth at the time.

"We realized Bitcoin is like a high-tech dominant digital network growing at 40% or 50% a year, and so we bought it," Saylor said in an interview, before saying, "It's kept growing at 40% to 50% a year, and now we're using our balance sheet to grow the company."

Saylor, during the first earnings call after the company announced its strategy, said, "The reason we decided to buy bitcoin is because Bitcoin represents a form of digital gold. It's harder than gold. It's smarter, it's stronger, it's faster than gold."

The latest move by MicroStrategy concerning its Bitcoin holdings came ahead of the deadline the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gave to spot Bitcoin ETF applicants, as well as the final deadline for the commission to make a decision on the proposals.

Bitcoin, the world's largest crypto asset by market cap, was trading in the green zone at $43,017.14 with a 24-hour trading volume up by 8.48% at $27,827,408,03 as of 10:25 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Bitcoin's latest price action represents a 0.63% increase in its value in the past 24 hours and a 2.51% loss over the past seven days.

Data from CoinMarketCap shows that the current circulating supply of Bitcoin stands at 19,582,268 BTC and its market cap is at $842,527,786,038.