Strategy’s BTC binge has cost it $1 billion in expenses

It has cost Michael Saylor-founded Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) 10 figures to flip its 11-figure loss from February back into positive territory this month and eke out a 1% annual rate of return since his company started buying bitcoin (BTC).

On May 1, BTC rallied above the company’s then-$75,537 average cost basis. Last night, it extended that rally above $80,000 per coin.

Strategy’s holdings had an $11.5 billion unrealized loss as of February 6, 2026; with BTC trading at $80,000 last night, Strategy now has an unrealized gain of $3.7 billion.

To service this investment, however, Strategy pays far more than a few basis points of trading commissions. To the contrary, the company has paid over $1 billion to operate its incredibly complex operations that funded these purchases.

Over $1 billion to buy Strategy’s bitcoin

All-in, it has cost Strategy over $1 billion, beyond the cost of the BTC itself, to purchase its BTC treasury.

In the five years since 2020, the first year Strategy bought BTC, the company has reported $259 million in net interest expenses to service its indebtedness, plus $381 million of dividends to its preferred shareholders. Issuance costs associated with compensating the brokerages and investment bankers for raising that capital added another $163 million.

Add $319 million of company-wide equity-based compensation over those five years, most of which went to executives and board members who pivoted the company from software sales to BTC buys, and the tally exceeds $1.1 billion.

Read more: Michael Saylor’s Strategy lost $1.2 billion buying bitcoin in Q1

Even ignoring the executive compensation involved in directing and managing BTC buys would still yield a figure above $1 billion. Indeed, during the first four months of 2026, the company has also paid over $8 million in additional interest payments to bondholders plus over $300 million in dividends to preferred shareholders.

Paying approximately $1 billion to lose $11.5 billion before an asset luckily rallied to recoup those losses is certainly an obtrusive investing strategy.

Just believe bitcoin will rally more

Of course, Saylor justifies this extravagantly expensive bet on BTC by repeatedly claiming that BTC is supposed to rally at least 30% a year for the next decade. If it does, he argues, all of these expenses will have been worth it.

In fact, he erroneously believes BTC has already exceeded his target over the trailing five years.

Specifically, on April 30, 2026, Peter McCormack failed to correct Michael Saylor’s claim that the average rate of return (ARR) of BTC over the five prior years was 39% annually. 

“What’s the bitcoin performance for the past 5 years? 39%,” Saylor inaccurately claimed. “Ever since we got in this business, bitcoin has appreciated 39% a year ARR.”

In fact, for the five years prior to April 30, 2026, the ARR of BTC was 6%.

Even extending the timeframe to nearly six years prior — August 10, 2020 to be precise, which is the date of Strategy’s first BTC purchase — the ARR figure rises to a mere 36% and is still shy of Saylor’s loudly proclaimed number.

Strategy paid $1 billion to generate 1% annually

Moreover, the return of BTC since August 10, 2020, is not the investment return of Strategy’s BTC, which is nowhere close to 36%. Instead, Strategy’s holdings have been negative for many months of Saylor’s trade due to him buying in at high prices.

In total, the company has only earned 5.9% with BTC trading at $80,000 per coin. Worse, it has taken the company 5.7 years to achieve that 5.9%, meaning its actual ARR is just 1%.

In summary, Strategy has paid closing costs, commissions, compliance staff, executive compensation, interest, and dividends exceeding $1 billion to service more than five years of financial engineering to buy BTC. For these 10 figures worth of expenditures, Strategy has achieved annual investing returns of 1% with BTC trading at $80,000.

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