Co-founder of software company MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor is planning to sell stock options worth $216 million in the firm.
He will use some of the proceeds of the sale to purchase BTC for his personal stash. A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the sale of the stock options.
The co-founder
In the said filing, Saylor had proposed to sell about 310,000 stock options that had been granted back in 2014.
Speaking on the fourth-quarter earnings call of MicroStrategy, Saylor said that he had been granted a stock option for 400,000 in 2014 and it was scheduled to expire next April if they are not exercised by then.
He also revealed that he was planning on exercising and selling 5,000 shares every trading day, beginning on January 2nd until April 25th.
He also added that a minimum price condition would be applicable. Saylor stated that exercising this option would enable him to deal with some financial obligations.
He also added that some of the funds would also help him acquire some additional Bitcoin for his collection.
Bitcoin
The executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy is a vocal supporter of Bitcoin. In 2013, he claimed that the days of the crypto token were numbered.
But, then he underwent a Damascene conversion and his company has gone on a Bitcoin buying spree since then.
MicroStrategy has purchased a total of 189,150 BTC tokens that are valued at $8.5 billion in accordance with current prices.
Saylor has also purchased the pioneer crypto token for his account. In 2020, he revealed in a tweet that he had bought 17,732 BTC tokens and had paid an average price of $9,882 per token.
In 2021, Saylor retweeted his 2020 post and said that selling Bitcoin was not a good move. His personal BTC holdings at current prices are valued at over $800,000,000.
More details
If Saylor holds his tokens in one wallet, then he would be on the list of the top 103 Bitcoin addresses. During the conference call, he stated that he was ‘optimistic’ about his company’s prospects.
He also added that he would still have a significant equity stake in the firm. Thanks to the price surge in Bitcoin that saw it cross the $45,000 mark, MicroStrategy’s stock price also rose in pre-market trading.
The company’s stock price hit $691.74. Saylor also celebrated the performance of the company in 2023 via a tweet.
He stated that Bitcoin had ‘empowered’ the company. The rise in Bitcoin recently has been used for the anticipated launch of a spot Bitcoin ETF.
The SEC is expected to approve the investment product, as it has a deadline to respond to applications until January 10th, 2024.
If the regulatory agency does approve, it is expected to give the price of the asset a significant boost and also increase capital inflow in the crypto market.