VanEck's Sigel Says Strategy Is Now ‘A Hedge Fund’ As Company Adopts Framework Allowing Bitcoin Sales

MSTR closed up over 8% Friday, with retail sentiment on Stocktwits in the 'extremely bullish' zone.

• VanEck's Matthew Sigel said on Sunday that Strategy now trades like "a hedge fund" and questioned its NAV premium.
• Strategy's new framework permits Bitcoin sales for the first time, though no BTC has been sold per its latest 8-K.
• Sigel proposed a "living will" provision requiring treasury companies to unwind if they trade below NAV for too long.

VanEck Head of Digital Assets Research Matthew Sigel said Strategy Inc.'s (MSTR) new capital framework, which permits the company to sell Bitcoin for the first time, has changed the nature of what investors own, and questioned whether the stock deserves a premium to its net asset value.

"You're buying a hedge fund that can trade five things: its own capital stack and Bitcoin," Sigel said on Sunday’s episode of Scott Melker's podcast. "What P/E do you pay for such a hedge fund? I pay very low."

Sigel said VanEck concluded internally last week that "the ball is in Saylor's court" and that Chairman Michael Saylor would have to make decisions as pressure mounted on the company. He characterized the decisions Strategy announced over the weekend as amounting to a move "to sell some Bitcoin, basically."

Strategy's last Form 8-K disclosed a Board-authorized "BTC Monetization Program" allowing the company to sell Bitcoin to fund a $2.55 billion USD Reserve, cover preferred dividend and interest payments, and finance up to $2 billion in combined securities repurchases. The filing showed no Bitcoin was actually sold during the June 22–28 reporting period, with holdings unchanged at 847,363 BTC.

MSTR’s price closed up over 8% on Friday. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around MSTR remained in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone, while chatter stayed at ‘normal’ levels over the past day.

"It's funny how leverage works," Sigel said. "Feels really good on the way up," he added, noting companies can become forced sellers in a downturn.

Sigel Pushes 'Living Will' Provision For Bitcoin Treasury Companies

Sigel said VanEck's Node ETF has been underweight digital asset treasury companies, a positioning he attributed to lessons from covering emerging markets, where conglomerates with entrenched management and related-party transactions can trade at 0.3 to 0.4 times net asset value "for a long, long time."

He proposed that Bitcoin treasury companies adopt a "living will" provision in their prospectuses, under which management would unwind the company, sell its coins, and return cash to shareholders if the stock traded below a set multiple of net asset value for a defined period. Such a mechanism, he argued, would give minority shareholders a path to realizing value and could narrow the persistent discounts at which some treasury stocks trade.

Melker, the podcast host, said Saylor's messaging "kick[ed] the can far enough down the road" for the company to step out of the spotlight, and noted that public commentary from Strategy-linked figures had grown less strident in recent days. Sigel agreed with that characterization.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<