Jim Cramer took a swing at Michael Saylor this week, tweeting "who murdered Bitcoin?" and tagging the Strategy chairman directly. The timing wasn't random. Hours earlier, Strategy — the company formerly known as MicroStrategy — sold 32 bitcoins for roughly $2.5 million to fund dividends on its preferred shares. It's the firm's first sale since 2022, and it broke a long-held never-sell posture that Saylor had made into dogma.
The Tweet and the Target
Cramer's jab landed on a company that still holds over 843,000 BTC — the largest corporate Bitcoin stash by a long shot. He has a history of contrarian calls that challenge the crypto investment thesis, and his target this week was Saylor, the maximalist who convinced public markets to treat convertible bonds and preferred stock as crypto leverage. The question "who murdered Bitcoin?" is classic Cramer: provocative, vague, and pointed enough to sting.
A Change of Posture at Strategy
The sale itself is small — 32 coins in a 843,000-coin portfolio — but the signal is loud. Strategy had positioned itself as a buyer only, funding purchases through share issuances and structured preferreds. That model magnifies downside in risk-off environments, and right now the risk-off environment is real. Bitcoin fell more than 20% over a few weeks and is now sitting at its 200-week moving average. The company's variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, STRC, has slipped below $95 and depegged from its $100 target. Selling even a modest amount to pay dividends suggests the funding machine is under pressure.
The AI Rotation Thesis
Saylor himself blamed the broader sell-off on capital rotating into AI, not on fundamental weakness in Bitcoin. He's not wrong about the rotation — there have been roughly $4 billion in Bitcoin ETF outflows since May 14. But Strategy's Bitcoin bet has underperformed the S&P 500 over the same multi-year horizon, and that gap makes it harder to sell the story to new investors. The sale of BTC to fund dividends is a practical move, but it chips away at the narrative that Bitcoin is permanently locked away in Saylor's vault.
Preferred Stock Under Pressure
STRC's depeg from $100 is the market's way of saying the yield isn't compensating the risk. Strategy used these structured preferreds to raise capital for Bitcoin buying, and the math works when Bitcoin is climbing. When it's falling 20% in a few weeks, the leverage cuts the other way. The company didn't say whether more sales are coming, but the 32-coin sale was enough to fund the dividend obligation this time. Next quarter is another question.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin sits at its 200-week moving average — a level that has historically marked either a bottom or a further leg down. The direction will likely determine whether Strategy's model holds or faces more strain.
