Strategy announces net loss of $12.6 billion in Q4 after Bitcoin fall

Strategy reported a fourth-quarter loss as bitcoin prices fell sharply, significantly reducing the reported value of its digital asset holdings. As the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, the company was heavily exposed to the market decline, leading to a substantial writedown of its balance sheet and one of the largest quarterly losses ever reported by a U.S. listed company.

Strong depreciation of bitcoin: cause of quarterly loss

In its earnings release, Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, reported an operating loss of $17.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2025. The loss came primarily from unrealized declines in the value of its bitcoin holdings and far exceeds the $1.0 billion operating loss reported in the fourth quarter of 2024. The net loss attributable to common shareholders was $12.6 billion, up from approximately 671 million dollars for the same period of the previous year.

Despite these significant losses, Strategy continued to increase its bitcoin position. The company declared now hold 713,502 bitcoinsof which 41,002 were purchased in January 2026. This announcement comes in the context of a severe fall in the market. Bitcoin recently recorded one of its biggest daily declines on record, falling from around $73,100 to nearly $62,400. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is trading around $65,000.

Stock fall and analyst forecasts

Bitcoin's decline and general market turbulence also affected Strategy shares, which started the day near $120 and ended the regular session around $107, before falling to around $102 in after-hours trading. Compared to a year ago, the stock is down more than 70%, reflecting investor disinterest in the company's bitcoin-focused strategy.

Before the results were released, an analyst at crypto analytics firm Messari estimated that Strategy's fourth-quarter loss would be around $17.4 billionclosely matching the figures reported by the company. The analyst added that a continued decline in bitcoin in early February would result in approximately $14 billion in additional unrealized losses, bringing the total decline in the market value of the company's bitcoin holdings since the end of 2025 to nearly $31 billion.

This continued market decline has directly impacted Strategy's position in bitcoin. The company purchased bitcoin at an average price of around $76,000, and the recent drop in its value turned them into an unrealized loss of more than $9.2 billion. Just four months ago, as bitcoin neared record highs, the company's holdings showed unrealized gains exceeding $31 billion.

Bitcoin falls to lowest level since October

In this bearish context, the executive chairman of Strategy, Michael Saylor, briefly posted onwriting “HODL”, a term commonly used to signal a long-term holding approach and discourage selling during market declines.

At the time of writing, bitcoin has fallen more than 5%. Market intelligence platform Santiment attributed this continued weakness to a change in behavior among large holders. According to Santiment, whale and shark wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 bitcoins now control 68.04% of the total bitcoin supply, an all-time low for these wallets, following net sales of 81,068 BTC over the past eight days.

At the same time, wallets holding less than 0.01 bitcoin now represent 0.249% of the total supply, reaching their highest level in 20 months. While that share remains small, Santiment said the increase reflects persistent buying at dips by retail investors.

The platform noted that this mix of large sell-offs by large holders, while small investors continue to accumulate, historically corresponds to bear market cycles. Santiment added that until a broader retail capitulation becomes evident, institutional and major investors can continue to allocate their holdings with little urgency to return to the market.