Bitcoin reaches $60,000. MicroStrategy stock surges on Bitcoin purchases
Bitcoin prices continued to surge, surpassing $60,000 per token on Wednesday, up about 5.5% as midday Eastern approached. One of the key catalysts has been record net inflows into the recently launched spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), as we wrote on Tuesday.
Since the launch of 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs on January 11, the price of Bitcoin has surged about 40% from around $43,000 to its current level of over $60,000. This week alone, prices have risen a whopping 16% from around $51,000 on Monday. The Bitcoin price is currently nearing its all-time high of $69,000 set in November 2021.
Another catalyst for the surge is likely to be large purchases such as: MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) is a business intelligence company that is also the largest corporate owner of Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy holds 193,000 Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy, headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, provides AI-based intelligence, data and workflow software solutions for enterprises. However, in 2020, the company implemented a new corporate strategy to adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. MicroStrategy is the first publicly traded company to adopt this strategy, company officials said.
According to the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, MicroStrategy held 190,000 bitcoins as of February 5, equivalent to $5.93 billion, or $31,224 per bitcoin. From the fourth quarter to this quarter, the company began purchasing Bitcoin.
“We acquired 31,755 additional Bitcoins since the end of the third quarter, marking the largest quarterly increase in Bitcoin holdings in the last three years and the 13th consecutive quarter we have added Bitcoin to our balance sheet. We benefited from the significant rise in the price of Bitcoin in the fourth quarter and continued to leverage our strategic capital markets activities and cash reserves to accumulate more Bitcoin and create incremental value for our shareholders,” said MicroStrategy’s CFO. Andrew Kang said. Earnings Report.
Since the report came out on February 6th. According to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report published on February 26, MicroStrategy purchased approximately 3,000 additional Bitcoins.
According to SEC filings, MicroStrategy purchased about 3,000 bitcoins for $155.4 million between Feb. 15 and Feb. 25, at an average price of about $51,813 per bitcoin. This purchase was made with stock issuance and sale proceeds and surplus cash. After this purchase, the company now holds approximately 193,000 Bitcoins worth $6.09 billion, with an average purchase price of approximately $31,544 per Bitcoin.
Stock price up 52% YTD
MicroStrategy stock, which has been down last week, rose another 10% on Wednesday to about $960 per share during Wednesday’s session. MicroStrategy stock, which had been trading at $687 per share since market close last Friday, was up about 40% as of Wednesday. As of February 28, it has risen about 52% so far this year.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, MicroStrategy founder and chairman Michael Saylor said the company’s Bitcoin purchases will not decline.
“I will forever buy the best,” Saylor told Bloomberg.
He called Bitcoin “the most powerful asset class” and believes capital will continue to flow in from other asset classes such as gold, real estate, stocks or the S&P 500.
“There is no reason to sell winners to buy losers,” Saylor added.
