Phong Le, CEO and president of Strategy, joins Scarlet Fu and Tim Stenovec on "Bloomberg Crypto." Strategy resumed Bitcoin purchases after a 10-week pause, returning to its signature accumulation strategy after the crypto bear market pressured its shares, weakened confidence in the financing model and prompted a balance-sheet overhaul.
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What Phong Le said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Phong Le defended MicroStrategy's recent Bitcoin sales and purchases, arguing decisions are based on cost of capital, not price. He said the company sold a 'minuscule' 7,000 Bitcoin (less than 1% of holdings) to fund stretch dividends while increasing holdings 30% this year, and described the strategy as 'two-way' capital management. Le said he does not foresee selling Bitcoin in a heavy bull market and expects to keep buying at $80,000, $90,000, $100,000, and $130,000. He criticized MSCI's proposal to exclude nonoperating asset companies, calling it 'discriminatory, arbitrary, and misguided,' and noted only 3% of shares track MSCI indices. Le said the company has zero net debt, $6.7 billion in cash reserves, and could raise more equity if needed, having raised $20 billion this year.
Key takeaways
MicroStrategy sold 7,000 Bitcoin, less than 1% of holdings, to fund stretch dividends, while increasing holdings 30% this year.
Le expects to keep buying Bitcoin at $80,000, $90,000, $100,000, and $130,000, and does not foresee selling in a heavy bull market.
The company has zero net debt, down from about $7 billion, and $6.7 billion in USD reserves.
MicroStrategy raised $20 billion in equity capital this year, ranking fourth in the US behind SpaceX, Google, and Intel.
Le called MSCI's proposal to exclude nonoperating asset companies 'discriminatory, arbitrary, and misguided,' but said it matters little since only 3% of shares track MSCI indices.
1:11So do you regret selling around the $60,000 mark just a few months ago?
1:32What do you make the decision based around then?
2:07Is this still a one-way accumulation strategy, or has something within MicroStrategy's overall strategy fundamentally changed?
3:27So based on all that, Phong, what needs to happen or what would indicate to you the next right time to actually offload some Bitcoin from your balance sheet?
I want to focus on the purchase of Bitcoin because I'm curious about the logic of selling Bitcoin in that $60,000 to $65,000 range and then buying more of it last week in the $80,000 range. It seems like a sell-low, buy-high kind of scenario.
You know, we don't really make decisions on Bitcoin specific to Bitcoin price. What did we do over the last two months while we were not buying Bitcoin? We shored up our balance sheet. We now have $72 billion of assets, $65 billion of Bitcoin, $7 billion of USD reserve. That's a 34% increase in the last two months. We've taken our debt, our net debt down to zero from about $7 billion in that same period of time. So by strengthening our balance sheet, we actually have strengthened our equity value, which makes it more profitable to sell MSTR and buy Bitcoin. So that's what's changed in the last couple months. And right now, what that's done is it's given us a bulletproof balance sheet, a fortress balance sheet, and it's also made us the largest crypto company in terms of assets in the world.
No, not at all. It was the right trade at the time to sell Bitcoin to fund some of our stretch dividends. It's the right trade at this point in time to sell MSTR at a premium to buy Bitcoin. So both were the right transactions at that point in time.
You say you don't make decisions about buying and selling Bitcoin based on price. When answering Scarlett's question, that's what I took away from that. What do you make the decision based around then?
On the cost of capital. You know, it's not too much different now when you think about somebody who's financing a data center buildout. Right? It's a lot more expensive to get land, to get energy, to buy assets than it was 10 years ago. But what's different? The cost of financing is lower, and the ROI on the data center is higher. So it makes sense for us to make the decision based on the cost of capital, what we think the returns are.
During that 10-week pause, you sold about 7,000 Bitcoin to cover preferred dividends and buybacks. So you spent about two months selling Bitcoin even though, as a company, part of your thesis is that you don't ever sell Bitcoin. Is this still a one-way accumulation strategy, or has something within MicroStrategy's overall strategy fundamentally changed?
Oh, it's a two-way strategy. Right? There will be times when it makes sense to sell Bitcoin. And as you know, that 7,000 Bitcoin is less than 1% of the total Bitcoin we have. Right? So I know it gets a lot of discussion, a lot of focus, but it's a pretty minuscule amount of Bitcoin that we sold to fund our stretch dividends. Whereas this year, we've increased our Bitcoin holdings 25, 30 overall. So call it increase our holdings 30%, sell 1% of Bitcoin. But we want to have the ability to do that. Right? If Bitcoin is our primary asset on our balance sheet, a lot of our debt holders, ratings agencies, etcetera, said, "Well, if you aren't willing to sell the Bitcoin, what are you really as a company?" Right? A one-way accumulator isn't really a full operating company. Somebody who is able to buy and sell Bitcoin, buy and sell equity, buy and sell preferreds—that's really a true operating company and a two-way capital management company, and that's what we are.
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Le, P. (2026, September 1). Sold 'Minuscule' Amount of Bitcoin: Strategy CEO [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1295760/
MLA
Phong Le. "Sold 'Minuscule' Amount of Bitcoin: Strategy CEO." Bloomberg Television, 1 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1295760/.
BibTeX
@misc{le2026_1295760,
author = {Phong Le},
title = {Sold 'Minuscule' Amount of Bitcoin: Strategy CEO},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1295760/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
