Summary Strategy is a Strong Buy even if Bitcoin never becomes a reserve asset. A modest, hype-driven rebound to $100K is in itself compatible with a long-term BTC bearish scenario. MSTR trades at only a ~7% mNAV premium, which a BTC yield of ~13% YTD can erase in under a quarter, converting the trade into pure upside. Additionally, the company’s preferred shares create a unique yield-on-Bitcoin product that builds a moat and, in my view, justifies a long-term mNAV premium. This is further potential upside. At BTC $100K–$150K, MSTR can reasonably reach $479 (previous ATH) depending on the mNAV premium, offering ~4x upside from current levels with asymmetric risk/reward. Key risks include a BTC plunge below ~$10K and potential dividend cuts on preferred shares, but both require a severe, prolonged Bitcoin bear market. Today, I want to ask readers a question: how likely do you think Bitcoin USD ( BTC-USD ) is to eventually recover, at least partially, from current price levels? Even if you are a Bitcoin bear, do you think we are going to see Bitcoin go exactly to 0 in a straight line from here? If your answer is “likely not” rather than yes, I think Strategy Inc ( MSTR ) represents one of the most obvious buys in today’s market. Let me play devil’s advocate: Bitcoin will never become a reserve asset Bitcoin’s market cap at the time of writing is ~$1.22 trillion (with BTC trading at ~$61,000). For a supposed reserve asset, this is a small-ish asset class, in fact, smaller than even a company like Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. ( SSNLF ). Bitcoin is only 14th among the largest assets on Earth (see below). As far as reserve assets go, gold is 25 times larger, while US treasuries held by central banks are worth at least 3 times more than Bitcoin’s total market cap. Companies Market Cap Let’s assume that bears are right, and Bitcoin never stood a chance at becoming a new, global reserve asset. Nor will it ever mature to become a top 5 asset by market cap, which would imply at least a ~3x return from current prices, and Bitcoin trading close to the $200,000 range. Even in that scenario, all that is needed for Bitcoin to go back to trading at ~$100,000 (its most obvious “psychological” threshold) is for an additional ~ $800 billion of capital to pour into it. Is Bitcoin at ~$100,000 compatible with a bearish scenario? This $800 billion figure is purely a market cap calculation that does not account for Bitcoin that is actually circulating and readily available to trade, from which its overall market cap is inferred. Bitcoin’s circulating supply is currently only about ~60% of the ~19.9 million that have been mined to date. Of these 12 million Bitcoins, only about ~2.7 million are on exchanges, meaning that they can be easily traded (see chart below). Crypto Quant With BTC around $61,000, that exchange's “inventory” is worth about $165 billion. At a $100,000 BTC price, those same coins would be worth about $270 billion. That leaves a gap of ~$105 billion. The market is really trading against this kind of constrained float, not a fully liquid 21 million coin supply. This amount of capital flowing back into Bitcoin, in my view, is compatible with a mild bearish scenario where Bitcoin never matures into a global reserve asset. Let’s pick three among the most popular Bitcoin bearish narratives: BTC is used by criminals. BTC is used to gamble online or purely speculate. That BTC is mostly purchased by Strategy itself, in a vicious cycle that creates no value. All these scenarios still allow for capital to eventually pour into Bitcoin, even if just as a function of hype, speculation, and limited use cases. In this context, I think even a bear could agree that a decent case can be made that BTC back at $100,000 is not such an unlikely event. Obviously, a significant risk exists, which I will cover later. There is no bullish case for Bitcoin without one for Strategy Strategy has been criticized at times for accumulating too much Bitcoin, with the argument being that this may discourage institutional investors (governments, central banks, pension funds, etc.) from purchasing Bitcoin if they feel like one active actor can control most of its circulating supply. Whether you agree with this thesis, the silver lining of such a criticism is that, today, it is very difficult to imagine a world where Bitcoin goes on a rally, and Strategy doesn’t benefit. Strategy went from merely deploying part of its cash into Bitcoin to a full Bitcoin treasury company. Today, it offers a selection of preferred shares (which I covered in detail here ) that act like a bond and are a way to generate yield from Bitcoin. More importantly, the company has always been very consistent in its mission: increasing BTC per share (i.e., the amount of BTC that each shareholder is “entitled” to), as shown in the chart below. BTC per share (In Sats) (Strategy Tracker) I cannot time the bottom, but today’s ~1.07X mNAV is attractive At current price levels, you are buying the “right” to $1.22 - $0.81 worth of Bitcoin for every $1 you put into MSTR. That difference depends on how exactly you calculate the mNAV premium of the company. By merely factoring Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings against the company's market cap, MSTR trades at a mNAV discount of roughly 20%. Once you account for debt (and for the value of the underlying software business, which most analysts estimate to only be worth a few hundred million), Strategy trades at a slight premium, as outlined in the table below. Method BTC NAV EV / Market Cap mNAV Premium Simplified (Mkt Cap only, basic shares) $51.50B $42.46B 0.82x –18% discount Official Strategy EV minus software (~$200M) $44.73B $55.27B 1.235x +23.5% premium Official Strategy EV (basic shares) $44.73B $55.47B 1.24x +24.0% premium My own calculation, relying on data I extracted from Seeking Alpha or Yahoo Finance, puts MSTR’s mNAV premium at the time of writing at ~1.07X, obtained as follows: Market cap ($42.89B) + Debt ($7.33B) + Preferred shares ($6.30B) − Cash ($0.06B) [$56.46B] / Strategy’s BTC at market value [$52.74B] =1.07. I used to think that buying MSTR made the most sense only when the company traded below its mNAV, as it did last during the 2022 BTC bear market. However, the situation today has changed, and I think given how difficult it is to time the bottom of any stock, today’s prices warrant already a Strong Buy rating. Margin of safety: why today’s price levels are interesting When I downgraded MSTR from Buy to a Hold back in February last year, my thinking was simple: even as a Bitcoin bull, there was no reason to give $1 to Michael Saylor to access only $0.6-$0.5 worth of Bitcoin (at the time, the company traded at a mNAV between 1.7X and 2X). The better option was to buy Bitcoin directly. Time proved me correct, as Strategy underperformed Bitcoin lately (see below). Seeking Alpha What the company was doing, back then, mostly consisted of diluting shareholders to buy more Bitcoin. Except for having launched an e-commerce website and rebranding the underlying software business as an AI business, I did not see anything worth justifying an mNAV premium long term. Today, with MSTR trading at an mNAV premium of just ~7%, the situation is completely different. And I see two dynamics justifying a strong margin of safety. Reason to buy #1: current BTC yield almost nullifies the mNAV premium Strategy’s BTC yield (i.e., the increase in the amount of Bitcoin shareholders are “entitled to”) is 13% YTD, 9.9% QTD, and 22.8% for 2025. At a premium of just ~7%, investors buying in today would see their premium close completely in less than a quarter, based on historical BTC yield metrics. The company did not disclose its exact BTC yield target for 2026 (in 2025, this was initially set at 15% and subsequently raised). However, they did announce the objective of holding 1 million Bitcoins by the end of 2026. With the company holding 843,706 BTC at the time of writing, this would represent an 18.5% BTC yield for the year. In other words, someone buying MSTR today would likely see their mNAV “filled” by the end of the year. Assuming that MSTR’s mNAV never goes below 1, at that point any further purchase from Strategy would be an upside against having simply bought Bitcoin. Why to buy #2: Strategy deserves a long-term mNAV premium as it creates its moat As I discussed in my latest piece on Strategy, I think Michael Saylor finally managed to justify Strategy’s existence as a Bitcoin treasury company (or a “Bitcoin bank”). This was done primarily by starting to offer preferred shares, which are a unique way to get yield while remaining fully exposed to Bitcoin. This product has no direct equivalent in the market, at least for now. Most yield-seeking financial products related to Bitcoin or crypto use an option strategy. Nor can this financial product be copied easily because Strategy is the only company that has such a large exposure to Bitcoin and can therefore “engineer” their preferred shares in this way. In this sense, I think Strategy is finally starting to build its own “moat” in the cryptocurrency world and with Bitcoin. Something that, considering the company already controls 4.5% of BTC’s supply, will be hard to replicate. I see this financial engineering tied to Bitcoin as the moat of the company and the reason Strategy can trade at a mNAV premium long term. I will stop DCA’ing into MSTR at $479 per share During Bitcoin bull markets, MicroStrategy’s mNAV premium ranged from negative to peaks of above 4X. To be fair, I don’t think such rich premiums are achievable unless we see real hype in the market, which would imply Bitcoin going well above its recent ATH. The table below summarizes a few scenarios I drafted to assess where MSTR could trade if Bitcoin goes to $100,000 per coin or above. Note that for simplicity, I assumed no new shares were issued, and no more Bitcoins were bought by the company. While these are unrealistic assumptions, they compensate each other since one of the main ways Strategy buys BTC is with ATM offerings. Scenario BTC price BTC value of holdings MSTR value at stated premium Implied share price 1x premium with BTC at 100k $100,000 $84.37B $84.37B $239 2x premium with BTC at 100k $100,000 $84.37B $168.74B $479 2.5x premium with BTC at 150k $150,000 $126.56B $316.39B $897 3x premium with BTC at 200k $200,000 $168.74B $506.22B $1,436 My personal target for MSTR today is $479, which roughly corresponds to Strategy’s previous ATH. I think this could be achieved if Bitcoin trades between $100,000 and $150,000. This, to me, is doable even in a scenario where Bitcoin never matures into a reserve asset long-term but only trades in virtue of retail hype and limited use cases. Since $479 would be roughly a ~4X from current share prices, I see MSTR today as an asymmetric bet, and I rate it a Strong Buy. I plan to stop my DCA and potentially derisk my MSTR position once we hit the previous ATH. If you are bullish on Bitcoin, you may want to stay in for the ride As a Bitcoin bull , I do believe the potential with Strategy goes further than its previous ATH. As outlined in my previous table, I think $1000 per share is easily achievable if Bitcoin goes to a next cycle high of at least ~$200,000 (that would make it equivalent in size with silver as an asset class, at today’s prices). However, Strategy has historically started underperforming Bitcoin exactly at the ATH. This is a result of Saylor choosing to dilute shareholders with ATM offerings to buy more Bitcoin, diluting shareholders in fiat currency terms. This makes strategic sense in Bitcoin terms (as it increases BTC yield), but always proves a headwind on the share price, at least in the short term. To be fair, Saylor has slowed down share issuance (see table below) in the last months. This was done partially thanks to the high demand for the new preferred shares of MSTR, which provided liquidity to buy more Bitcoin. BTC shares outstanding, P5Y (Macro Trends) However, I would expect ATM offerings to increase once again in a bullish context. That’s why I think the best approach is to at least partially derisk one’s MSTR position as we approach a new ATH while keeping some shares to benefit from potential further upside. Risks to buying MSTR today The most obvious risk to entering a trade in Strategy today is that Bitcoin may plunge to zero, without any (even temporary) recovery. Being leveraged to the tune of ~$7.33 billion at the time of writing, Strategy cannot afford for Bitcoin to go below ~10,000 for long, as it would risk defaulting on its own debt. The underlying software business, which only generates about ~$430 million per year in revenue, would not be enough to cover existing debt obligations in itself. Beyond this very bearish scenario, there are also a couple more layers of risk to the company. The first is tied to Strategy’s financial engineering. While the issuance of preferred shares is what I think justifies a long-term mNAV premium, it also comes with risk. Strategy currently only has enough cash to cover its dividend obligations for ~6 months. This is a result of the company having recently repurchased a significant amount of debt, which reduces exposure in that sense. Yet, it remains to be seen if, in a protracted BTC bear case, Strategy may eventually cut its own dividend for preferred shares. That, in turn, would make the case for a long-term mNAV premium weaker. Another element of risk involves betting on MSTR, which, in my own calculations, still trades at a slight premium, instead of betting on other smaller BTC treasury companies that trade at a significant discount. An example is Twenty One Capital, Inc. ( XXI ), a BTC treasury company that recently became public through a reverse merger. XXI trades at a clear mNAV discount of ~25% at the time of writing and may be a better bet if long-term MSTR loses its mNAV premium. Conclusion Let me state the obvious: if you believe Bitcoin is going to zero in a straight line from here, buying Strategy (a Bitcoin treasury company) makes no sense. If you are open to the idea that Bitcoin going to 0 in a straight line is not the most likely outcome, even in a bear case for Bitcoin, I think buying MSTR at current levels is a no-brainer. Buying at today’s mNAV, the small premium (~7%) you are paying will likely be reduced to zero by the end of the year, just based on what Saylor plans to buy. Any more Bitcoin that MSTR purchases afterward represents free upside. Moreover, investors can also expect to benefit from an expanding premium. Even if Bitcoin never matures as a global reserve asset, I think a decent argument can be made that it could be pushed back to the ~$100,000 level as a result of speculation and limited use cases. In this sense, a Buy in MSTR today could be an interesting tactical trade even for a long-term BTC bear case. Given my target of $479 per share for MSTR (with upside well above $1000 per share in a bull case), and the ~4X upside this represents on today’s share prices, I rate MSTR a Strong Buy.
