About Phong Le
Phong Le, President and CEO of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), has been a frequent media presence in mid-2026 discussing the company's Bitcoin strategy and its new financial product, STRC (a perpetual preferred stock). Le stated that while the company is a net purchaser of Bitcoin, it may sell some Bitcoin before the end of the year to manage its capital structure, generate tax benefits, and satisfy obligations to its preferred stock and debt holders. He characterized this as "math over ideology," noting that the company's goal is to increase Bitcoin per share for common shareholders rather than to hold Bitcoin indefinitely. In June 2026, the company sold 32 Bitcoin, which Le described as an effort to "inoculate the market" and test their sales processes, while simultaneously buying over 1,500 Bitcoin in the same period.
Le has been a primary spokesperson for STRC, which he described as "digital credit" that pays an 11.5% monthly dividend and is designed to give retail investors access to Bitcoin exposure. He stated that the product has raised $8.5 billion in 10 months and that 80% of its holders are retail investors. Le argued that Strategy is building a new asset class that sits between private credit and money markets, and that regulation providing clarity around stablecoins and tokenization would lead major banks to enter the crypto space, which he characterized as positive for Bitcoin. He also stated that the company's legacy software business, which generates around $500 million in revenue, is neither a distraction nor a material part of Strategy's overall value.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Phong Le's recent appearances.
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✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
J
Joe Kernen0:00
Joining us now on a first-time interview to discuss these moves is MicroStrategy CEO Phong Le. Jefferies' chief market strategist David Zervos is still with us on set. It's great to have you both. Phong, let's just start with this sequencing. Why the sale? Why the purchase?
P
Phong Le0:16
Well, I'll start with we're net purchasers of Bitcoin. And you showed a pretty nice chart there that showed on net we bought about 1,500 Bitcoin so far this month or over the last month. And why the sale? A few reasons. One, we thought it was good to inoculate the market to understand that we are willing to sell Bitcoin when we need to. We haven't needed to, but it's important thing to do. Two, it's a lot easier for us process-wise to buy Bitcoin than to sell Bitcoin. So we want to make sure everything's working. And three, over time, we'll be able to capture assets on our balance sheet that are tax losses related to the sale of our Bitcoin. We bought Bitcoin anywhere from $10,000 up to $125,000. One reason we didn't sell our Bitcoin, we did not need to sell our Bitcoin to satisfy our dividends. We're able to do that through other capital raising activities.
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Joe Kernen1:07
I guess, Phong, the frustration among some people that we've spoken with is that you guys kind of said, 'Well, you'll never sell any Bitcoin,' and even a small sale gets them frustrated. How do you respond? What's your message to investors not only in your stock, but to maybe crypto investors that are, let's say, understandably frustrated right now?
P
Phong Le1:26
We have a set of constituents that we have to be able to answer to. One is our common stock or MSTR shareholders. Second is our preferred stock, our STRC shareholders. Third are our debt holders. And fourth are our Bitcoin holders. Not necessarily in that order. And when it makes sense for our common stockholders for us to sell our Bitcoin, we will. We actually did it in 2022. And so we're going to do it now. It's again, for if you're a Bitcoin holder, we're the largest holder of Bitcoin in the world. We're the largest purchaser of Bitcoin in the world. Will continue to be.
D
David Zervos1:59
This is David Zervos here. I just wonder if you could help us in the macro world understand this halving of Bitcoin. What does it mean to you from a macro setting? I know we go through these periodic repositionings. There's technicals. There's lots of things you guys are in the weeds doing. But for those of us that are looking at it and saying, 'Is there a macro story? Is there something fundamental here?' Maybe also with the weakness in gold and silver and other sorts of commodities that seem to be safety plays. It is a somewhat unsafe world and we're seeing a lot of these safety plays not really be very safe. Is there a message that we should be taking away here in the macro community from what's happened in Bitcoin over the last, well, since basically the halving?
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Phong Le2:46
Yeah, what's interesting is we are seeing still four-year cycles with Bitcoin related to the halving. Now, whether that continues to be the case, I don't know. But it's interesting, maybe not coincidental, that four years ago was the last major drawdown in Bitcoin from 66K down to 16K, about a 75% drawdown right around May of 2022. And here we sit with potentially the next drawdown in Bitcoin that would then lead to an increase. When you talk about macro, because I think it's much more than the four-year cycles, right? We have a lot of volatility in the market right now and you talked about it earlier, right? We have an uncertain inflationary environment and what is the new Fed going to do with interest rates? Keep them flat, increase or decrease. We have two pretty major wars happening in the world. And with crypto, we have the lack of clarity of what's going to happen with clarity. I think those are the three macro scenarios that are impacting Bitcoin price and impacting value assets overall.
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Joe Kernen3:52
What do we see over the long term?
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Phong Le3:52
I do think Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation. I think Bitcoin is a hedge against big government, and I think people realize that and that's why they've gotten into Bitcoin. And that doesn't change.
J
Joe Kernen4:03
Why did you sell, Phong?
P
Phong Le4:07
We sold because we wanted to inoculate the market and we sold because we wanted to test our processes.
J
Joe Kernen4:12
And what did you learn from that?
P
Phong Le4:14
We learned that everything works, right? Like, it is interesting, right? The question is why does the sale of 32 Bitcoin get so much attention? Our institutional shareholders that we talk to don't seem to be unnerved by it. I think the unnerving is the retail community that has views on never selling your Bitcoin that are crypto anarchist, and frankly, we have a lot more than just them as constituents.
