(Aug 17): Michael Saylor continues to run his bitcoin accumulation flywheel in reverse.

Strategy Inc sold US$333.7 million (RM1.36 billion) of common stock over the past week to fund the repurchase of preferred shares and a cash reserve rather than making fresh purchases of the cryptocurrency. No bitcoin was bought or sold in the seven days ended Aug 16, the company said in a filing Monday. Strategy hasn’t bought any bitcoin since the middle of June.

At the end of June, Saylor — the executive chairman on Strategy — announced that the company was pivoting from the bitcoin accumulation blueprint he pioneered to a capital management approach. Over the last five weeks, the company has sold about US$2.1 billion of common while buying back about US$347 million of its STRC preferred shares. Strategy has also sold US$213.3 million of bitcoin during that period.

Strategy boosted its reserve to US$4.8 billion in the most recent week after using some of the proceeds to pay interest on its preferred shares. The firm owns about US$58 billion in bitcoin.

Saylor first voiced the notion of breaking from his “never sell” mantra in May as mounting pressure from the collapse of bitcoin’s price caused his financing mechanism of selling stock and preferred shares at a premium to grind to a halt.

Shares of Strategy rose about 3% to US$95.78 in early trading. The stock is down around 73% in the past year.

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