Standard Chartered Says Michael Saylor’s BTC Pivot Message Needs Clarity To Convince Investors

Strategy founder and chairman Michael Saylor posted a chart on Sunday with the message “Orange dots tell only part of the story,” as Standard Chartered said his BTC pivot message needs clarity to convince investors.

The post followed Strategy’s shift toward using Bitcoin to support dividends and maintain cash reserves, after the company moved away from its long-time “never sell Bitcoin” approach.

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Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, said Strategy’s actions and Saylor’s manner of communicating them “are muddying the waters for BTC near-term.”

Kendrick argued that effective communication of Strategy’s new strategy—using Bitcoin to back STRC—could reassure markets that wholesale selling is unlikely and “should in turn support BTC prices.”

Standard Chartered tied its critique to Strategy’s disclosures, including a July 6 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that said Strategy sold $216 million worth of Bitcoin earlier this month.

That same filing reported Strategy’s total holdings declined to 843,775 tokens, after Strategy unveiled a capital framework that contemplates Bitcoin sales as part of funding dividends.

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The framework also increased the annual dividend rate on Strategy’s STRC preferred stock to 12% and reported US dollar reserves of $2.55 billion.

Kendrick said the “never sell” framing limited what MSTR’s BTC holdings can do—or “what they are perceived to be doing”—and pointed to the company having “sold BTC twice and recently announced a BTC monetization program.”

Investors who bought into Strategy’s Bitcoin narrative have faced pressure ahead of a July 30 earnings report, with the company slated to report second-quarter earnings on July 30.

The STRC preferred shares were initially structured to hold a price of $100 apiece, but shareholders saw that par value fall last month to the lowest value since the preferred stock was introduced a year ago.

Strategy’s common shares, trading under the MSTR ticker, have lost more than 70% of their value since July 2025, closing at $94.64 per share on Friday, down from a 52-week high of $457.22.

Even with the critique, Kendrick said Standard Chartered expects its $100,000 year-end forecast for Bitcoin, while arguing that clearer signaling could remove the need for MSTR to actually sell any BTC by supporting STRC’s price.