- MicroStrategy said the firm has entered an agreement with investment bank Cowen & Co. to sell up to US$500 million of its Class A common stock, with the possibility of using that amount to buy more Bitcoin.
- MicroStrategy added that it intends to retain all future earnings, if any, to purchase additional Bitcoin and for the development of the software business.
Publicly traded software company MicroStategy (+11.71%) may ostensibly be in the business of enterprise software, but its name is synonymous with Bitcoin, and is already the single largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency, with over 129,000 Bitcoin in its coffers.
In a prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, MicroStrategy said the firm has entered an agreement with investment bank Cowen & Co. to sell up to US$500 million of its Class A common stock, with the possibility of using that amount to buy more Bitcoin.
The announcement comes just a month after its CEO Michael Saylor stepped down and one week after the Washington D.C. Attorney General sued the company and Saylor for alleged tax fraud.
MicroStrategy added that it intends to retain all future earnings, if any, to purchase additional Bitcoin and for the development of the software business.
The enterprise software company has accrued a sizable Bitcoin treasury of 129,699 BTC, today worth over US$2.7 billion, which the company says it plans to hold for the long term.
In the share prospectus, MicroStategy added that it has no plans to engage in trading or enter into derivative contracts with its Bitcoin holding, but may sell Bitcoin as needed to generate cash for “treasury management and other general corporate purposes.”
Bitcoin has rebounded in as many days, having sunk to a low of US$18,500 last week to come back strongly to US$22,200 as at the time of writing.
Investors remain cautious in their appetite for cryptocurrency, despite growing institutional interest, including BlackRock’s recent tie-up with exchange Coinbase.
Sentiment remains mildly bullish given the upcoming software upgrade of Ethereum, which has been years in the offing, and which would see the world’s second most valuable blockchain by market cap switch to the far more energy efficient Proof-of-Stake method to secure transactions.
