The shares of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy have ripped sharply higher, surging by more than 16 percent earlier today.
The stock (NASDAQ: MSTR) is currently trading at its highest level since June 2001, benefiting from Bitcoin’s historic rally.
MicroStrategy’s transformation into a Bitcoin whale
After going public in June 1998, MicroStrategy saw steep gains of thousands of percent at the peak of the dot-com bubble.
On March 21, 2000, however, the stock tumbled 65 percent in one single day after the software company had to dramatically restate its financial results, an announcement that its shareholders didn’t take on the chin.
The personal net worth of CEO Michael Saylor erased $6 billion following the restatement.
After its collapse, MicroStrategy had been mostly under the radar for almost two decades.
Saylor decided to reinvent the company by deploying its massive cash pile to Bitcoin, starting with an initial the initial 21,454 BTC
This December, it purchased an additional $650 million worth of the cryptocurrency after issuing convertible senior notes.
MicroStrategy now owns a whopping 70,470 BTC ($1.9 billion at press time).
Shrugging off Citi’s skepticism
As reported by U.Today, Citibank analyst Tyler Radke downgraded MicroStrategy due to its “disproportionate focus” on the world’s largest cryptocurrency:
We see the recent stock rally as overextended and see incremental risks to the story following an announced $400 million convertible note to fund even more Bitcoin purchases.
Back then, the company’s shares were trading at $337 a pop. Fast forward to Dec. 28, MSTR reached almost a ten-year high of $379, adding 12.5 percent since the bearish call.
Bitcoin soared to a new all-time high of $28,377 on Dec. 27 before paring some gains.
Valeria Blokhina
Vladislav Sopov
