MicroStrategy($MSTR), the business intelligence and software solution provider today announced the purchase of an additional $15 million in Bitcoin using treasury cash reserves. The recent purchase has taken its total Bitcoin holding to 91,579 estimated to be worth $5.29 billion.

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The Fortune 500 company started purchasing Bitcoin in August 2020 when it was trading above $11,000 and since then it has invested a total of $2.226 billion, making them a $3 billion profit in less than a year.

MicroStrategy has purchased an additional ~253 bitcoins for $15.0 million in cash at an average price of ~$59,339 per #bitcoin. As of 4/5/2021, we #hodl ~91,579 bitcoins acquired for ~$2.226 billion at an average price of ~$24,311 per bitcoin. $MSTRhttps://t.co/OMQMhA85xw

— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) April 5, 2021

$MSTR Has Risen as High as 826% Since First BTC Purchase

At the time of Microstrategy’s first Bitcoin purchase on August 11, 2020, $MSTR was trading at $141.99. Since then the price of the company’s stocks has risen by more than 8X reaching an ATH of $1,315 on February 9, 2021, with an 826% rise since the first purchase.

Bitcoin price in the same time frame has risen from just over $11,000 to a new ATH of $61,683 with a percentage increase of 463.67%. Thus $MSTR rise is even 2X than the BTC rise in the same time frame.

$MSTR is currently trading at $706 with a nearly 3% rise over the past 24-hours and up by over 350% since its first Bitcoin purchase.

MicroStrategy was among the first Fortune 500 companies to propagate the idea of using Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset and drew a lot of flack in the early stage, where CITI Bank went on to demote $MSTR shares from “Hold” to “Sell” for investing heavily in a highly volatile asset class. However, that didn’t deteriorate the firm from investing in Bitcoin who went on to raise $1.65 billion through two sales of debt security in the form of the company’s convertible notes.

The firm faced criticism again for buying Bitcoin using credit, but Michael Saylor, the CEO of the firm suggested they would continue raising money via debt security to buy more bitcoin.

MicroStrategy Leads the Institutional Bitcoin Adoption

Michael Saylor has turned into a big-time Bitcoin proponent and has even influenced many other publically traded companies to invest in Bitcoin. Saylor is also credited for Tesla’s $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase as he himself has claimed that his interaction with Musk on Twitter convinced Musk to invest in the top cryptocurrency.

For a publically traded company like MicroStrategy, the decision to choose Bitcoin over US Dollar says a lot about BTC’s growing dominance as a digital store of value. With mainstream adoption knocking on the doors, Bitcoin could play versatile roles in the near financial future, especially as an inflation hedge. MicroStrategy is just a few purchases away from 100K Bitcoin holdings and its soaring stock price is also a sign of public approval.

About Author

Prashant Jha

An engineering graduate, Prashant focuses on UK and Indian markets. As a crypto-journalist, his interests lie in blockchain technology adoption across emerging economies.