Peter Schiff calls Strategy's latest Bitcoin buy 'the beginning of the end'

Schiff calls the purchase dilutive

@PeterSchiff is not impressed. The veteran gold advocate and Euro Pacific Capital chief has labeled @Strategy's purchase of 1,550 $BTC as little more than "damage control," arguing the company sold common stock at a discount and diluted its Bitcoin per share in the process. His verdict: the transaction produced a negative Bitcoin yield for common stockholders, and that, in his words, marks "the beginning of the end" for the firm's strategy.

Strategy disclosed the purchase in a Form 8-K filing on Monday, June 8, covering the period June 1 to June 7. The 1,550 coins were acquired at an average price of $65,332 each, bringing total holdings to 845,256 BTC at an average cost of $75,680 per coin. The purchase was funded through Strategy's at-the-money share-sale program, with the company raising $181 million from Class A common stock sales during the same filing period. Schiff's dilution argument rests on that gap: shares sold below the implied Bitcoin value per share, meaning each new share issued purchased Bitcoin at a cost greater than the stock price implied.

A familiar script from a persistent critic

Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff said the purchase was made at the expense of existing shareholders, arguing that the transaction was "dilutive to common stockholders." The charge is not without a kernel of nuance. Strategy now carries five series of perpetual preferred shares with annual obligations of $750 million to $800 million, and its USD reserve had declined to roughly $900 million before Monday's $100 million replenishment. The company has framed its USD reserve as a mechanism for insulating its BTC holdings from dividend pressure, and reaching $1 billion means management has, in principle, set aside enough cash to service near-term preferred-stock obligations without touching BTC.

Still, context matters when weighing Schiff's warnings. According to data compiled by bitcoindeaths.com, Schiff has made at least 22 public statements declaring Bitcoin "dead" since 2011, more than any other tracked critic, with his first such call coming when Bitcoin traded near $17. Despite those repeated predictions, Bitcoin has risen more than 4,100-fold since Schiff's first recorded obituary call. Trackers that catalog his predictions have recorded more than 20 instances in which he forecast the cryptocurrency's collapse, and that history has made him a frequent target of Bitcoin supporters, who note that the asset has repeatedly recovered from steep sell-offs to set new highs.

Whether this latest call lands differently is an open question. Strategy remains the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder, and its equity-funded accumulation model continues to operate. For now, Schiff's "beginning of the end" sits alongside a long list of prior calls that Bitcoin has, so far, outlived.

Sources:
The Defiant: Strategy Buys 1,550 BTC for $101M, Cash Reserve Hits $1B
Crypto Times: Strategy Reaffirms Bitcoin Treasury with Fresh 1,550 BTC Acquisition
Yahoo Finance: Peter Schiff Has Claimed Bitcoin Has Died Over 21 Times