Core Announcement
Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick said Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the largest corporate Bitcoin holder with 843,775 coins (over 4% of the total 21 million), appears to be pivoting from its “never sell Bitcoin” mantra to a more complex approach that uses Bitcoin as backing for its preferred stock, STRC.
Valuation Metrics
The pivot is driven by Strategy’s mNAV metric, which divides enterprise value by Bitcoin holdings, falling to around 1.0 from well‑above that level between 2020 and mid‑2025, rendering the original share‑issuance‑to‑buy‑Bitcoin model less effective.
Preferred Stock Details
Strategy’s preferred stock, STRC, functions as a credit product; it has approximately $10 billion notional outstanding, trades around $90 per share, and Kendrick expects it to trade back to $100 given its heavy over‑collateralisation.
Price Forecast
Standard Chartered maintains its end‑2026 Bitcoin price forecast of $100,000, characterising recent price weakness as “mostly noise” rather than a signal of medium‑term direction.
Market Implications
Kendrick emphasised that clearer communication of Strategy’s new approach is key to reassuring markets that wholesale Bitcoin selling is unlikely, which would remove the need for MicroStrategy to actually sell any BTC.