MicroStrategy Sold Bitcoin in 2022 for “Tax Efficiency”

Former MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has detailed why the software business sold some Bitcoin after earlier declaring that it would not sell its cryptocurrency.

Saylor claimed in a conversation on Twitter Spaces that MicroStrategy may benefit from tax breaks by selling part of the business’s Bitcoin because the company is a corporation. Quoting the Bitcoin bull, he said:

“Bitcoin is traded as property right now, so that means that you can sell the property, take the capital loss and you have the option to buy property in the future or to have bought it in the past and that’s a different tax basis.

We have some capital gains that we pay taxes on and then we can have some capital losses in Bitcoin, so by selling the Bitcoin and taking the capital loss, we’re able to use that to offset some capital gains. So it’s very tax efficient for the corporation.”

In an SEC filing on December 28, MicroStrategy revealed that on December 22nd, it sold $11.8 million worth of Bitcoin at an average cost of $16,776 per BTC. According to the business, the transaction of around 704 BTC was made for tax considerations.

MicroStrategy is the world’s largest corporation holding Bitcoin. With its latest purchases made in December 2022, the firm now holds 132,500 Bitcoin.