MicroStrategy announced Wednesday that it bought just over $ 1 billion in additional bitcoins, just days after another sale of convertible debt ended.
The Virginia-based business software company said it paid an average price of $ 52,765 for bitcoin, including commissions and other expenses. Its acquisition of approximately 19,452 bitcoins places MicroStrategy’s total holdings in the digital token at 90,531.
MicroStrategy unveiled its first bitcoin purchase in August, with existing cash on its balance sheet to acquire the cryptocurrency. Since then, it has completed two convertible debt offers to raise capital to fund additional purchases. The most recent offer was completed last week and generated approximately $ 1.03 billion in net revenue; notes have a coupon rate of 0%.
The news of the purchase of MicroStrategy comes when the price of bitcoin rose again by more than $ 50,000 on Wednesday, although it later fell below that level. The highest move follows Tuesday night’s news from Square, which said it bought the cryptocurrency worth $ 170 million.
MicroStrategy said Wednesday that the average purchase price of all of its bitcoin purchases is $ 23,985 per digital token. It has cumulatively spent $ 2.171 billion on bitcoin. According to the price of bitcoin on Wednesday morning, the firm’s stakes were worth nearly $ 4.5 billion.
MicroStrategy shares were up more than 7% in premarket trading. The company’s shares closed more than 20% on Tuesday, as the price of bitcoin dropped.
However, MicroStrategy shares have stagnated since it announced its initial bitcoin purchase in August, up more than 400%, as some investors turned to the shares for exposure to the cryptocurrency. .
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has become a major proponent of bitcoin in recent months and called on other companies to buy digital token as an investment. On Tuesday, he told CNBC that he believed Bitcoin would one day have a market value of $ 100 trillion. As of Wednesday, Bitcoin has a total market capitalization of approximately $ 920.85 million, according to Coindesk.
Watch the full CNBC interview with Saylor on Tuesday below.