Saylor’s Strategy Faces ‘Sizable’ Fourth-Quarter Loss From Bitcoin Tumble
Michael Saylor has long noted that Bitcoin’s volatility “is a feature, not a bug” when pitching his cryptocurrency accumulator Strategy Inc.
Investors will soon see the downside of that, with the company likely to report a multibillion-dollar loss when it releases results for the just-ended fourth quarter. That would be a swing from a $2.8 billion profit in the previous quarter, reflecting an unrealized loss tied to the falling value of the company’s roughly $60 billion Bitcoin stockpile.
“There was this one-time pop, but that is a different story in this quarter,” said Aaron Jacob, an associate professor at Brigham Young University and senior adviser at Taxbit. “It is going to be a sizable loss.”
Strategy initially adopted an accounting change in the first quarter that requires valuing the firm’s crypto holdings at market prices, which is why it is expected to book such a big hit: Bitcoin fell 24% during the fourth quarter. The multibillion loss still comes at a critical time for the dot-com-era software maker turned leveraged Bitcoin proxy. Investors have begun to sour on the treasury company model Strategy co-founder and chairman Saylor pioneered more than five years ago. After outperforming benchmark stock indexes since this shift, the common shares of the company formerly known as MicroStrategy tumbled 48% in 2025.
The declining share price raised concern that Strategy would have to sell Bitcoin to meet future costs such as mounting dividends and interest payments since the cryptocurrency doesn’t produce any income and the software business generates little positive cash flow. To help alleviate those concerns, Strategy established a cash reserve on Dec. 1 by selling common shares.
The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company also updated its full-year earnings guidance at the start of last month, assuming a price range of between $85,000 and $110,000 for Bitcoin by year-end. Based on that estimate, it projected that operating income would range from a loss of $7 billion to a profit of $9.5 billion. With Bitcoin ending last year down 6.5% to $87,648, the operating loss is likely to be closer to the lower end of the projected range.
A spokesperson for Strategy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
