Bitcoin Magazine
5 Reasons Corporations Should Sell Bitcoin
Recently Strategy made headlines by saying that it might sell some bitcoin to meet business objectives. This came as a surprise to many people because of what was previously regarded as a hard-lined stance to never sell. Saylor even (jokingly) tweeted stuff like “Sell a kidney if you must, but keep the bitcoin.”
The reality is that bitcoin sales were always on the table for any bitcoin treasury company. The quip of “never sell” is an articulation of a long-term investment philosophy founded upon the extreme low time preference that is common in bitcoin discourse. But even within this discourse, there are frequently cases where almost everyone agrees it makes sense to sell, despite the ubiquity of the HODL meme.
The simplest reasons involve improving one’s quality of life: buying a house to raise a family, paying for a trip to a place you’ve wanted to go, sending your kids to college, unexpected and severe medical bills. The list is very long. HODLing often isn’t as long.
For a company, the reason to do anything (and indeed the reason for a company’s existence) is to improve shareholder value.
Consider another group of bitcoin companies that have been selling. Our Q1 Report highlights that Bitcoin miners have sold 25,376 BTC in Q1 2026 to fund AI pivots. The value creation math is simple. Management believes that their AI capex will yield better risk-adjusted gains than the bitcoin they sold. Under these assumptions, it makes sense that they sold bitcoin to fund AI. In fact, this is reason 0: if there is a better investment than bitcoin, then selling bitcoin for that makes complete sense.
For Strategy—and all treasury companies that are focused on raising capital to accumulate bitcoin—there are clear cases where selling can create value. Let’s go through some of them.
Reason 1: Bitcoin per share
Growing Bitcoin per share (BPS) is the goal of most treasury strategies. A period over period growth in BPS is called BTC Yield. BTC Yield is normally achieved when bitcoin is purchased, which increases the numerator in the BPS ratio. However, it can also be achieved when shares are purchased, which decreases the denominator in the BPS ratio.
If shares trade at a discount to the bitcoin they represent, then selling bitcoin to buy back stock always leads to an increase in BPS. This is because the percent change in bitcoin holdings is still greater than the percent change in shares outstanding.
The discount rule also applies in the case of ongoing obligations (such as preferred stock dividends or debt coupons) that cannot be funded with operating cash flow. If shares trade at a discount, then it is better to sell bitcoin to pay these obligations. This would lead to a smaller decrease in BPS.
Reason 2: Cost of capital and raising capital
Because ratings agencies have much sway over how capital markets allocate funds, their rule