Corporate Bitcoin reserves are becoming more polarized: Strategy is racing ahead, why are imitators collectively withdrawing?

In April 2026, a company transformed from a software enterprise quietly authored the most extreme asset-liability experiment in corporate finance history. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy)’s Bitcoin holdings climbed to 818,334 coins through repeated “buying on dips,” with a market value of approximately $63.7 billion, nearing the estimated 1.1 million coins held by Bitcoin’s anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Meanwhile, the mining giant MARA, once loudly proclaiming “HODL,” was reducing holdings on a large scale, with Galaxy Digital’s Bitcoin exposure even below 10,000 coins, while sovereign capital from the Middle East and Scandinavia quietly accumulated via ETFs.

A question arises: Is Michael Saylor’s five-year “corporate Bitcoin reserve model” a replicable paradigm or merely an exceptional case?

Key milestones behind a $25.5 billion purchase

On April 28, 2026, Strategy filed an 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing that between April 20 and 26, it sold 1,451,601 shares of MSTR common stock at market prices, netting $255 million, and used the proceeds to buy 3,273 Bitcoin at an average price of $77,906 each. This was Strategy’s fourth purchase in April, bringing total holdings to 818,334 coins, with an accumulated purchase cost of about $61.81 billion, averaging roughly $75,537 per share.

From the start of the year through April 26, Strategy had accumulated 144,551 BTC, averaging about 36,137 per month, with a full-year target of reaching one million coins. Saylor also disclosed on social platform X that as of the reporting date, the company achieved a 9.6% Bitcoin return rate in 2026, a core performance indicator he created to measure per-share Bitcoin ratio growth.

This purchase pace, against the backdrop of a global Bitcoin daily new output of only about 450 coins, means Strategy’s monthly purchase volume is roughly 2.7 times the total new Bitcoin mined worldwide. The market’s supply-demand balance is visibly tilting.

From 2019 annual report to the “Ten Thousand Words” Bitcoin philosophy

The public starting point of the strategic transformation can be traced back to August 2020. At that time, the company announced Bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve asset, with an initial purchase of 21,454 BTC costing $250 million. Bitcoin was around $11,000 then, and the logic of a software company buying crypto was not well understood.

Since then, the timeline can be roughly divided into three phases.

Phase 1 (August 2020 to end of 2023): Exploration and leverage trial-and-error. The company continued to increase holdings through convertible bonds and common stock issuance. During the 2022 bear market, holdings temporarily suffered significant unrealized losses, but Saylor chose to continue increasing rather than cut losses. This accumulation laid the foundation for profit elasticity after the 2024 bull market.

Phase 2 (2024 to mid-2025): Accelerated expansion. Approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs brought structural liquidity improvements to the entire market. Strategy’s market cap-to-Bitcoin holdings ratio (mNAV) once exceeded 1, creating huge arbitrage opportunities for financing to buy more Bitcoin. During this period, the company launched the “21/21 Plan”—raising $21 billion through equity financing and fixed-income instruments—fully monetizing the market’s premium on Bitcoin.

Phase 3 (late 2025 to present): Stress testing. Bitcoin surged above $110,000 mid-2025 but then fell below $70,000, with about 40% of listed Bitcoin treasury companies trading below their net asset value (NAV). The previously dubbed “infinite money loophole” financing–buying cycle began to face resistance.

After 2026 began, Strategy’s buying pace reached unprecedented levels. Besides four consecutive purchases in April, in early March the company bought 17,994 BTC in a single week, costing $1.28 billion, funded by the sale of 6.3 million MSTR shares and 3.7 million STRC preferred shares. As of April 27, the company still had about $26.47 billion worth of MSTR stock available for issuance, meaning even without new financing channels, existing limits could support substantial subsequent purchases.

Data and structural analysis: When a single company holds 3.9% of the global Bitcoin supply

Absolute advantage in holdings

As of April 26, 2026, Strategy’s 818,334 BTC accounts for 3.9% of the 21 million hard cap, about 4.1% of the current circulating supply. At the same point, its holdings even surpass those of the world’s largest Bitcoin spot ETF—BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).

In comparison, other so-called “corporate Bitcoin treasuries” are vastly smaller:

Special attention is needed for MARA: between March 4 and March 25, 2026, the company sold 15,133 BTC, cashing out about $1.1 billion to buy back approximately $1 billion of zero-interest convertible bonds, reducing total debt from about $3.3 billion to $2.3 billion. Post-reduction, holdings dropped from over 50,000 to 38,689 coins, falling behind Strategy. For risk management, MARA has revised its 2026 treasury policy to formally include the possibility of selling holdings.

Galaxy Digital’s situation reflects a very different logic: as a financial firm focused on trading, asset management, and investment banking, it held over $609 million in crypto assets as of April 2026, including 4,560 BTC and 42,000 ETH, with several positions in unrealized loss. These digital assets are operational assets rather than strategic treasury reserves.

Concentration breaks historical thresholds

A March 25, 2026, report from CryptoQuant revealed an extremely concentrated pattern: Strategy controls about 76% of corporate treasury Bitcoin, while other companies’ holdings have plummeted from peak levels to about 1,000 BTC, a 99% drop. The number of participating companies shrank from 54 to 13.

In Q1 2026, global listed companies bought roughly 68,500 BTC. At first glance, this suggests institutional adoption is accelerating. But removing Strategy from the picture complicates the story: Strategy accounts for about 93% of all corporate net purchases and 97.5% of net increase (after other companies’ sales). Many other firms that announced Bitcoin treasury plans have mostly gone silent or reduced holdings during price retracements.

Unique financing structures

Strategy’s approach is not simply “buy Bitcoin with profits,” but rather “use the corporate balance sheet as a conduit to convert capital market liquidity into Bitcoin.” Its main financing tools are threefold:

1. Market-price (ATM) sale of MSTR common stock. The $255 million purchase completed in April 2026 was entirely funded by MSTR stock sales, with no involvement of STRC preferred shares.

2. Issuance of STRC perpetual preferred stock. Paying about 11.5% annual dividends, designed to trade near par value of $100, targeting yield-oriented investors as a “principal-protected fixed income product,” effectively channeling traditional capital market funds into Bitcoin purchases.

3. Historically issued convertible bonds. As of April 2026, Strategy held about $8.25 billion in debt and $13.53 billion in preferred stock, with annual dividend obligations of about $1.49 billion—while Bitcoin itself generates no cash income.

MARA’s path contrasts sharply: between 2024 and 2025, it also used convertible bonds to increase Bitcoin holdings massively, but in 2026, it chose to reduce debt via Bitcoin sales and redirect capital toward AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. This divergence reflects a fundamental split between “pure leverage holding” and “digital asset-backed corporate transformation.”

Public opinion breakdown: Three narratives on the same balance sheet

Market discussions around the Strategy model currently form roughly three distinct camps.

First: The “Pioneer of Structural Scarcity” theory

This view hinges on supply and demand. The total Bitcoin supply cap is 21 million, with about 4 million coins permanently lost or dormant, leaving less in circulation. Strategy alone holds 3.9%, still absorbing about 36,000 coins monthly. Advocates argue this “absorption—lock-in—never sell” behavior is creating an unprecedented asset scarcity environment. Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research publicly stated in late April that Strategy’s holdings surpass BlackRock’s IBIT, and at the current pace, could match Satoshi’s estimated 1.1 million BTC in two years.

Under this framework, Saylor’s repeated assertion that “Bitcoin will rise to $1 million unless it goes to zero” is not just a slogan but a long-term deduction based on supply-side logic. However, this deduction implicitly assumes “supply reduction must push prices higher,” without fully considering potential structural demand-side shrinkage.

Second: Concerns over systemic risks from concentration

Critics focus on the systemic risks posed by concentration itself. Peter Schiff, in his April 27, 2026, comment, pointed to Strategy’s 11.5% preferred stock dividend rate, arguing that maintaining such returns requires Bitcoin prices to keep rising or continuous new capital injections. If demand for STRC cools, the entire financing system could face refinancing pressure—a “death spiral.”

Deeper skepticism concerns the structural discount effect: when a company’s assets are mainly passive digital holdings, and its operations cannot generate cash flows covering interest, the market may impose a “structural discount”—market value below the Bitcoin holdings’ market value (mNAV below 1). This means investors can achieve higher economic exposure simply by holding Bitcoin directly, without leverage losses at the corporate level.

Third: The “Big Flow Diversion” of corporate treasuries

This camp no longer debates “whether to hold,” but rather “how to hold.” The market correction in Q1 2026 served as a stress filter. About 40% of listed Bitcoin treasury companies are trading below NAV, differentiating “Bitcoin as operational reserve cash flow” from “pure financial engineering leverage.”

The former includes Galaxy Digital, whose Bitcoin holdings support market-making, lending, and asset management—organic parts of the balance sheet. The latter includes forced liquidations like Genius Group, which was temporarily barred by U.S. courts from expanding Bitcoin holdings in April 2025, and has since reduced holdings to about 84 BTC, worth roughly $570,000. Extreme reduction strategies like MARA’s are actively reducing leverage and diversifying.

The core conclusion of this “big flow diversion” is that Strategy’s model is highly non-replicable under current market conditions—not because it’s unreasonable, but because its success depends on a rare combination: a continuously trusted leader, a market-accepted preferred stock issuance pipeline, and an enormous, nearly unmatchable asset base of 818,334 BTC. Imitators either lack the access to such financing or are forced out during initial market retracements.

Industry impact analysis: Three structural shifts

First: From “inclusive adoption” to “oligopoly”

2024 marked the peak of the “everyone can become MicroStrategy” narrative. After Q1 2026, this narrative largely failed. The market is undergoing filtering and elimination, with higher thresholds: companies must either have independent cash flow to cover capital costs or a continuously accepted financing pipeline. Those lacking either are gradually being eliminated.

European markets provide evidence. The largest European Bitcoin holdings are from Germany’s Bitcoin Group SE with 3,605 BTC (~$268 million); France’s Capital B with 2,925 BTC (average buy-in ~$99,932), currently with about 25.6% unrealized loss; and the Netherlands’ Treasury with 1,111 BTC (average buy-in ~$111,857), with about 33.5% unrealized loss. These holdings, established at high prices, now carry large unrealized losses, further reinforcing European caution toward copying Strategy.

Second: Sovereign capital’s entry shifts fundamental logic

Sovereign wealth funds enter Bitcoin differently from listed companies. In Q1 2026, they deployed over $1 billion via ETFs. Norway’s sovereign fund indirectly holds about 9,573 BTC through stakes in MicroStrategy, MARA, Coinbase, up 149% from before. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund explicitly states its ~$500 million allocation is “not for short-term gains,” but for long-term portfolio diversification.

Their approach—no direct management of Bitcoin, via ETFs or strategic holdings, without leverage—appears less aggressive than Strategy but may exert stronger structural influence. These institutions prioritize long-term capital preservation, with much lower exit probabilities than listed firms. When sovereign funds are the allocators, capital “stickiness” fundamentally alters supply-demand stability parameters.

Third: Mining companies’ Bitcoin treasuries shift from core assets to strategic chips

In Q1 2026, listed miners sold more Bitcoin than in all of 2025 combined. MARA sold 15,133 BTC, cut debt by 30%, and predicted occasional Bitcoin sales as part of liquidity strategies, marking a fundamental shift in miner paradigms. Bitdeer also liquidated its entire 185 BTC treasury, redirecting resources toward self-developed mining hardware and capacity expansion.

This reflects a basic economic reality: after halving, with reduced block rewards and rising global energy costs, miners face stark capital allocation trade-offs. Holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet incurs opportunity costs far higher than for software firms with stable revenues that only arbitrage capital markets.

Conclusion

Can the MicroStrategy model be replicated? The data provides a clear yet complex answer. From the “can it be imitated” perspective, the answer is close to “no.” Its operation structurally depends on a set of extremely rare, highly interconnected conditions: a founder-level leader who has not sold a single share in 20 years, a market-accepted preferred stock issuance pipeline paying 11.5% annual costs, and a position base of nearly 820,000 BTC—an almost impossible-to-duplicate scale. Imitators either lack the access to such financing or are forced out during initial market retracements.

From the “should it be imitated” perspective, the answer is equally cautious. MARA’s strategic retreat reveals a key insight: corporate balance sheets serve multiple goals, including liquidity, credit quality, and strategic flexibility. Betting all available financial firepower on a single asset as a long-term capital management strategy is only reasonable under very specific boundary conditions. For most firms, Bitcoin is better viewed as an asset allocation choice—rather than the entire asset allocation.

As of April 28, 2026, Bitcoin’s real-time price on Gate.io is $76,701.50, down about 1.57% in 24 hours, with a market cap of approximately $1.49 trillion and a market share of about 56.37%. At this price level, Strategy’s holdings are near breakeven, with unrealized gains of only about $1.9 billion. This thin profit margin safely symbolizes the current state of the entire experiment: success is not yet confirmed, but the story is far from over.

The grand experiment of corporate Bitcoin reserves is still ongoing. Thousands of companies have tried to emulate, but few persist. This perhaps proves it’s not inherently uncopyable—rather, that imitation itself is meaningless. Results born under unique conditions are not replicable by design. True investors should understand that the question is not “who can become the next Strategy,” but “under what conditions is holding Bitcoin a rational financial decision for a company.” This may be the longest-lasting lesson left by this five-year market experiment.