Publicly traded software firm MicroStrategy announced on Tuesday that it acquired 850 BTCs in January, taking its total holding to 190,000 bitcoins. The Bitcoin maximalist firm now holds 0.904% of Bitcoin’s total supply, worth $8.1 billion.
MicroStrategy revealed the purchase details in its Q4 2023 update on February 4. The firm also stated that it acquired its 190,000 BTCs at an average price of $31,224 with $5.93 billion. Furthermore, MicroStrategy acquired 56,650 BTCs in 2023 at an average cost of $33,580.
“We acquired 31,755 additional bitcoins since the end of the third quarter, marking the largest quarterly bitcoin holdings increase in the last 3 years and the 13th consecutive quarter of adding more bitcoin on our balance sheet. We benefitted from the significant increase in bitcoin prices in Q4, and we also continued to leverage our strategic capital markets activities and cash on hand to accumulate more bitcoin and accrete incremental value for our shareholders,” the President and CEO of MicroStrategy, Phong Le, stated.
A Little Earning Hit
Despite posting gains, MicroStrategy’s profits took a little hit quarter to quarter. In the Q4 2023 earning report, the firm posted a quarterly earning of $124.5 million, down 6% from Q4 2022.
However, the Bitcoin maximalist firm stated that its subscription service revenue increased by 23% year-over-year. It bagged $21.5 million from product licenses and subscription services.
Serious Competition
Although MicroStrategy is the publicly traded company with the highest Bitcoin holding, it now faces serious competition from other whales, especially institutions from ETF firms BlackRock and Fidelity.
In less than a month since the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved its first ETF, BlackRock and Fidelity now hold 134,358 BTCs. The duo now holds 70% of what it took MicroStrategy years to buy. Soon enough, either or both of them would hold more bitcoins than MicroStrategy at this rate.
Stablecoin issuer Tether is also a serious competitor to out-hold MicroStrategy, having acquired 66,486 BTCs in less than two years. This institutional influx into Bitcoin could be a catalyst that would move Bitcoin to $2.3 million, as ARK Invest’s CEO, Cathie Wood, had predicted.
