The basic multiple-to-net asset value (mNAV) per share of Strategy has fallen to a 19-month low. At just 1.21x,* the company’s common stock hasn’t traded at a worse basic premium to its bitcoin (BTC) holdings since late February 2024.
Investors overwhelmingly value shares of MSTR based on the company’s BTC treasury and its prospects to accrete additional BTC.
Strategy currently owns $78 billion worth of BTC but it enjoys a $94 billion market capitalization. It also made less than $350 million in gross profit over the past 12 months — in other words, not much relative to its $16 billion premium to BTC.
Indeed, the vast majority of that $16 billion in extra valuation is down to optimism about founder Michael Saylor’s efforts to sell products appealing to dividend and bond investors.
Unfortunately, that optimism has been waning.
As recently as November, MSTR traded as high as 3.4x or 240% above the value of its BTC holdings. Today, MSTR trades at a mere 1.21x or 21% premium.
19 months of declining mNAV
Even by one of its key metrics, Strategy isn’t performing as well as it performed last year. Its so-called BTC yield, the percentage change in its BTC relative to its assumed diluted shares outstanding, is up 26% — far below its 74% yield last year.
The reason for this diminishing return is bad. Last year, MSTR traded at a much higher mNAV than this year.
As a result, whenever Strategy diluted MSTR shareholders via its popular at-the-market (ATM) offerings, it was able to buy more BTC per share due to MSTR’s higher mNAV premium in 2024.
This year, Strategy’s lower mNAV is reducing its BTC yield.
As mNAV has compressed across the past 19 months, Saylor has invented an assortment of non-dilutive offerings like STRK, STRF, STRD, and STRC. These non-dilutive, dividend-paying preferred shares have slightly attenuated some of the decline in BTC yield via MSTR ATMs.
Nonetheless, MSTR ATMs have remained the company’s largest source of capital.
Bitcoin outperforms MSTR in 2025
Part of the reason for Strategy’s declining mNAV could be the relative outperformance of BTC itself this year.
Year to date, BTC is up 31% versus Strategy’s far less impressive 13.3%.
Strategy even introduced a new variant of mNAV in the months after its 3.4x November 2024 high. New and improved, it now broadcasts a more flattering enterprise value mNAV of 1.4x.
This revised metric assumes investors care about the company’s notional debt and notional preferreds outstanding when calculating the multiple of MSTR to Strategy’s BTC. If they do, they can find a 1.4x instead of a less impressive, 1.21x basic mNAV.
Still, even this diluted mNAV is at 19-month lows. Although the numerical figure is larger, the multi-month downtrend is similar for both metrics.
The fact is, anyone who bought BTC directly has outperformed MSTR investors since the start of the year. As months have dragged on, some investors are steadily losing optimism in Strategy’s dilutive ATMs and other novelty offerings.
Read more: MSTR down $8B this quarter despite inflows from global institutions
What can catalyze a resurgence for Strategy’s mNAV?
Eventually, investors need a reason to bid MSTR back up to a higher mNAV.
Common shareholders are continually diluted — including after reneged promises to stop dilution below 2.5x mNAV. Worse, common shareholders might not even have any legal ownership of Strategy’s BTC in the first place.
Along the way, corporate insiders have sold millions of dollars’ worth of Strategy shares. For example, Strategy board member Carl Rickertsen recently dumped all of his shares for $10 million.
Saylor has also sold millions of dollars worth of MSTR. Other executives and directors have also sold for years.
Strategy currently owns 640,031 BTC that it acquired at an average cost of $73,983, which gives the company plenty of padding beneath the prevailing $121,700 price of BTC. However, the company’s fiscal survival is an entirely different matter than its decline mNAV.
Strategy will be fine if the mNAV declines to 1x. MSTR investors, in contrast, have already lost 39% from their 52-week high and could still have more to lose.
*All figures as of October 7 Nasdaq market close.
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Source: https://protos.com/strategys-mnav-falls-to-19-month-low-as-btc-outperforms/