Strategy paused the ATM program it uses to issue STRC preferred shares after the stock hit an intraday low of $82.50 and closed at $88.59 on record volume, stalling Saylor’s bitcoin flywheel, as community scrutiny grew over his comment that he designed the instrument with AI.
Posted June 19, 2026 at 6:07 am EST.
Strategy has paused the at-the-market program through which it issues STRC preferred shares, after the security sank well below the $100 level it was engineered to hold, switching off the capital-raising mechanism at the center of Michael Saylor‘s bitcoin strategy.
The pause is the consequential development. STRC, formally the Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, is designed to trade around par through a variable dividend, currently 12.9% and adjusted monthly. When the stock trades above $100, Strategy issues new shares and uses the proceeds to buy bitcoin, a self-reinforcing flywheel. Below par, issuing shares means raising capital at an effective loss, so the machine seizes up. On Thursday, STRC fell to an intraday low of $82.50 before closing at $88.59, according to Yahoo Finance, on one of its highest-volume sessions on record, roughly 10.7 million shares versus a typical 3.4 million, and the longest stretch the security has spent below the $90 level at which it debuted in July 2025.
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The slide is both mechanical and sentiment-driven. STRC has not traded at par since mid-May, and Strategy’s recent shift to semi-monthly dividend payments moved the next ex-dividend date to June 30, removing the near-term incentive for yield traders to buy ahead of a payout. Investors have also rotated toward rival bitcoin-treasury preferreds offering higher yields and daily payments. The pressure traces to Strategy’s disclosure this month that it sold 32 bitcoin to cover dividends, its first sale since 2022, a signal that unsettled the market more than its small size suggested.
The stakes extend beyond Strategy, which has been the largest corporate buyer of bitcoin; without that steady bid, bitcoin may struggle to build momentum. TD Cowen maintained a Buy rating Thursday with a $400 price target, framing Strategy as evolving from a leveraged bitcoin proxy into a bitcoin capital-markets platform and suggesting it may prioritize rebuilding reserves and supporting its preferreds over fresh bitcoin buys in soft markets. MSTR shares closed down 4% at $112.53.
The episode has also reignited scrutiny of how STRC was built. In a recent Coindesk interview, Saylor said he designed Strategy’s preferred instruments with the help of artificial intelligence, recounting that he sat and went “back and forth with the AI for a few hours” and asked it whether anyone had ever structured a stable-priced monthly preferred this way. As STRC’s price came undone, that detail circulated widely: commentator Zack Voell paired a clip of Saylor’s remarks with the stock’s roughly 15% two-week decline, and investor Vinny Lingham amplified it with a terse “we’re so cooked.”
The reaction reflects a broader unease in the market that an instrument marketed as engineered for stability has, at least for now, failed to hold its peg, even if the de-pegging traces to dividend mechanics and rotation rather than to how the product was designed.
Related Listen: Why Saylor’s ‘Inoculate’ Comment May Be a Signal He’ll Sell More Bitcoin
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