Bitcoin treasury Strategy is back in the black after the rising price of the leading cryptocurrency gave the firm paper gains of $21 billion last quarter, its founder and chairman Michael Saylor has said. 

The Nasdaq-listed company last week also spent $28.7 million on 334 bitcoins last week, according to a Monday filing. The firm’s stock (MSTR) jumped earlier trading hours in New York before dipping slightly; it was recently priced nearly 2% higher. 

Bitcoin’s price shot up over 40% in the third quarter of this year, having its best three months in years. 

The price of the leading digital asset recently stood at nearly $85,655, unmoved over a 24-hour period but up over 8% over a 30-day period.  

Strategy added that it repurchased $176 million of its STRC preferred shares. As the world’s biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, it has 848,000 BTC, valued at around $72.6 billion at today’s prices. 

The company’s stock has taken a hit since the price of bitcoin plunged at the end of 2025 and the first half of this year. 

Investors buy Strategy’s shares to get heightened exposure to the cryptocurrency. They can also get paid a yield via its digital credit products. 

Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — slowed down with its bitcoin buys after announcing a program under which it may sell BTC from time to time to generate up to $1.25 billion in proceeds for the USD reserve, additionally fund preferred stock dividends and interest expenses or fund repurchases. 

The company even this year had to resort to selling bitcoin. It has since defended the bitcoin sales, with Strategy CEO Phong Le telling investors that the company now has a “bullet-proof balance sheet.” 

In the company’s quarterly earnings in July, Strategy posted a $8.22 billion loss. But Le reassured investors that the firm’s current paper loss was nothing to worry about.