By Darren Parkin
MicroStrategy Inc appears to be shaping up to add even more Bitcoin to its colossal crypto cache.
Already the world’s largest publicly-traded holder of the leading digital asset, the ‘enterprise-software’ maker revealed in trading figures that it had returned to profit.
Last year, MicroStrategy was forced into a write-down during the second quarter of trading, owing to a demise in cryptocurrency prices.
However, the 34-year-old company this week boasted a net income of $22.2 million ($1.54 per share) by the end of Q2 2023. A year earlier, shares had plunged to $94.
MicroStrategy’s founder Michael Saylor, who stepped aside as CEO to become ‘executive chairman’ during the losses, is a massive Bitcoin enthusiast. The 58-year-old regularly appears on TV discussing the merits of cryptocurrency, and remains one of Twitter’s most vociferous contributors on digital assets.
He’s also the driving force behind his company’s voracious appetite for buying Bitcoin.
This week’s company reports show more than $361 million in Bitcoin was acquired – its biggest purchase since November 2021 when Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $67,567.
At that point, MicroStrategy held Bitcoin to the value of $4.53 billion. According to this week’s statement, a further $361.4m was added in Q2 of this year, while more purchases were made last month.
A total of 152,800 Bitcoin are now held by the Virginia-based firm.
That figure now looks likely to swell again after this week’s filing stated MicroStrategy was looking to raise up to $750 million via share sales for ‘general corporate purposes’ – a phrase regularly interpreted as creating working capital and purchasing digital assets.
Entrepreneur Saylor suddenly began ploughing into Bitcoin three years ago, declaring that businesses were destined to shrink under a global rise of inflation. He shifted to crypto as a way of reducing cash holdings.
After turning MicroStrategy into the world’s biggest publicly-traded holder of Bitcoin he gave up the CEO reins to Phong Le last year, stating he wanted to give more time to the company’s digital asset strategy as executive chairman.
Despite the purchases, and the recent higher values of Bitcoin, MicroStrategy’s report closed by stating its operations were still not in profit. Although returning to an upward curve, the company suffered a quarterly operating loss of $26.7 million.
Curiously, during MicroStrategy’s conference call to deliver its filings, CEO Phong Le also took the opportunity to announce he would assume the responsibilities of the chief revenue officer who had ‘resigned’.
