Strategy's Bitcoin Treasury Swings to $1.4 Billion Profit as BTC Rally Erases $13 Billion Loss

3 min readPublished 22 Aug 2026

Strategy’s bitcoin treasury has flipped from a roughly $13 billion unrealized loss to a roughly $1.4 billion unrealized gain, according to Decrypt and Crypto Briefing, after a five-day rally pushed bitcoin above the company’s average purchase price. The company holds 840,447 BTC acquired at an average price of $75,385, both outlets reported, and with bitcoin trading around $77,000 the unrealized gain works out to roughly 2.4%.

Crypto Briefing published a nearly identical account the same day, and the overlap runs deeper than one figure. Its description of the 6,948 BTC sold since May, the $432.5 million in proceeds, the $334 million MSTR raise, the $4.8 billion dollar reserve, the roughly 10% premarket share move to $120, and the reference to bitcoin’s October all-time high of $126,000 track Decrypt’s wording closely enough that the two accounts read as the same reporting rather than independent confirmations. Crypto Briefing does attribute one figure directly to Decrypt — the 2.4% unrealized-gain calculation, cited in-text as “according to Decrypt” — but that single credit line understates how much of the rest of the article also traces back to the same source. Crypto Briefing’s page also carries a “Via fortune.com” credit, appearing twice, pointing to a third outlet somewhere in the chain that this article could not examine. What looks like several outlets converging on the same numbers may, in practice, be one report passing through multiple republishers.

What is actually confirmed, and by whom

Decrypt and Crypto Briefing agree on the core facts: Strategy’s 840,447 BTC holding, its $75,385 average cost basis, the swing from a roughly $13 billion loss in July — when bitcoin fell to around $58,000 — to a roughly $1.4 billion gain now. Both outlets also report that bitcoin remains below its October all-time high of $126,000, and that Strategy shares rose roughly 10% in Friday premarket trading to $120, their highest level in two months per Decrypt.

Both outlets also report the same sales activity: Strategy has sold 6,948 BTC for about $432.5 million since May, after years of Saylor championing what Decrypt described as a “never sell” approach. Of that, 1,690 BTC were sold for $109 million in the week ending August 9, with proceeds used to repurchase Strategy’s variable-rate STRC preferred stock. The company then raised $334 million through MSTR share sales; the funds went toward preferred dividends, STRC buybacks, and swelled its dollar reserve to $4.8 billion. Bitcoin itself rose nearly 23% over five consecutive days, per both accounts.

Where the sourcing gets thin

CoinDesk published a story under a headline matching this one at 08:24 UTC on August 21, more than nine hours before Decrypt’s 17:28 UTC report. Beyond that headline, CoinDesk’s reporting is unverified here: no body text, sourcing, or additional figures from that outlet were available for this article. Whether CoinDesk arrived at the $1.4 billion figure independently or the number simply circulated across outlets covering the same market move cannot be determined from what is available.

Only Decrypt’s account includes detail on the political backdrop: bitcoin’s rally accelerated this week, Decrypt reported, after President Donald Trump urged Congress on Wednesday to advance the Clarity Act, a proposed federal framework for digital assets that would split oversight between the CFTC and the SEC. Decrypt also reported that CFTC Chair Michael Selig said Thursday he had directed staff to prepare crypto market-structure rules in case the legislation stalls, quoting him: “If Clarity continues to stall because of Democrat obstruction, the CFTC will utilize its existing authorities to begin establishing a regime for crypto asset markets.” Crypto Briefing did not report this regulatory detail at all.

What remains unresolved

No outlet reviewed here reports a direct statement from Strategy or Saylor addressing either the swing to profit or the shift in sales strategy. It is also unclear whether the 2.4% unrealized-gain figure traces back to a primary company filing or disclosure, or whether it was simply calculated from public market prices against the disclosed cost basis. And because CoinDesk’s reporting is visible only as a headline, it is impossible to say whether its figures rest on the same underlying calculation as Decrypt’s, or were derived separately.

The bigger story, if the number swings again

The more durable fact across the verifiable reporting may not be the profit figure itself, which moves with bitcoin’s price day to day, but the change in Strategy’s behavior. For years the company’s posture, as Decrypt characterized it, was never to sell. Since May it has sold bitcoin on multiple occasions and raised equity capital, redirecting proceeds toward preferred-share buybacks and its dollar reserve rather than toward further accumulation. That shift is corroborated by both Decrypt and Crypto Briefing and does not depend on which day’s bitcoin price is used to mark the treasury to market.