A company that publicly commits to only ever accumulating BTC will give short sellers and arbitrageurs more angles to exploit.
Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow has pushed back against criticism that Strategy has betrayed its principles by saying it would sell BTC at some point in the future to pay dividends.
In a post published on X on May 7, Mow argued that public companies holding BTC need flexibility to protect shareholders, even if that means selling part of their stash at certain points.
Treasury Firms Need Optionality
According to the JAN3 CEO, the “never sell” rule was guidance for individual holders, not a binding corporate oath.
“As an individual HODLer you shouldn’t sell your Bitcoin for no reason. Avoid selling if you can. That is the message. It is not literally ‘never sell and take it to the grave,’” he wrote.
However, in his opinion, the calculus is entirely different for a publicly traded treasury company. His core point is about optionality. A company that publicly vows to only ever accumulate Bitcoin has, in his words, “handed a map to short sellers and arbitrageurs.” Therefore, the more tools Strategy holds, the fewer angles its opponents can exploit.
“A company with real optionality is hard to game: it might sell, might hedge, might issue, might buy,” he wrote.
Mow insisted that Strategy’s goal shouldn’t be to never sell Bitcoin but to benefit and protect shareholders.
He pointed to his own work, where he has designed Bitcoin bonds for nation-states that have scheduled Bitcoin sales built directly into their structure, allowing the issuer to sell BTC after a lockup period so as to return capital to bondholders. Without that mechanism, he said, “the instrument could not function.”
The BTC enthusiast drew a direct parallel to Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, describing it as an instrument designed to strip out Bitcoin’s volatility and share upside with investors who want asymmetric exposure without the drawdowns.
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Mow also flagged a post from Saylor himself, in which the executive chairman wrote that Strategy’s Bitcoin breakeven annual return rate is approximately 2.05%, implying that if the OG crypto grows faster than that, then the company can cover its dividends by selling it without diluting shareholders.
When one X user argued that Saylor should face scrutiny regardless, since he was the one who built his reputation on “never sell,” Mow gave a blunt reply:
“Corp strategy can’t be driven based on cool soundbites from a pod.”
Dividend Pressure and STRC Scrutiny Grow
The debate has grown alongside Strategy’s expanding use of preferred stock offerings, especially STRC. In its financial report for Q1 2026, where it revealed a $12.5 billion loss, Strategy said that STRC issuance has reached $8.5 billion, while the firm has raised nearly $12 billion this year.
Nevertheless, critics have questioned whether the model depends too heavily on issuing new securities, with Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff recently describing STRC as an “obvious Ponzi scheme” and claiming that the company lacks enough operating income outside its software business to sustain payouts.
