rewrite this title Analysts Remain Bullish on Strategy’s Bitcoin Buying Plans – Decrypt

Equity analysts from investment firms Benchmark and Bernstein reiterated their buy ratings and lofty price targets for Strategy (MSTR), a day after the company said that it had recorded a loss of $5.9 billion on its Bitcoin holdings in its first quarter of 2025. 

The analysts highlighted Strategy’s continued strategy to purchase more Bitcoin, which has become its core business after the company pivoted from software development about five years ago. 

“While the number of companies that have sought to replicate Strategy’s (MSTR) Bitcoin acquisition strategy has continued to grow rapidly, with more than 70 public companies having followed its lead by adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets,” Mark Palmer, Benchmark senior research analyst–fintech and digital assets wrote, “MSTR yesterday issued a reminder of the extent of its first-mover advantage and how its ability to accelerate its accumulation of Bitcoin has continued to increase as its platform has scaled.”

On Thursday, Strategy reported a decline of $16.49 per common share in the first quarter of 2025—a result of Bitcoin’s price plunge during the span. The company has faced the same macroeconomic headwinds afflicting crypto and tech firms more widely, yet in Thursday’s earnings call, it expanded on its initiative to acquire more Bitcoin through stock and fixed income vehicles. 

Strategy, which in 2020 pivoted from software development to focus on accumulating Bitcoin, now owns around 554,000 BTC, valued at roughly $53 billion based on current prices. The company purchased its Bitcoin at an average cost of $68,459, as of April 28.

The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company is in the latter half of an initiative that it announced last October to purchase $42 billion Bitcoin through these methods, and unveiled a new “42/42 Plan to acquire an additional $42 billion in Bitcoin through 2027, Palmer noted.

“It intends to raise a total of $84 billion of capital ($42 billion in equity and $42 billion in fixed income) through 2027 to fund Bitcoin purchases,” Palmer noted. “MSTR’s audacious $84 billion capital-raising target includes the $42 billion targeted by its initial plan, which is now 65% complete with ~$14.7 billion remaining.”



Benchmark sets a price target of $650 for Strategy shares (MSTR), citing analysis that includes the projected value of the company’s BTC holdings, a 15x multiple of its BTC dollar gain, and the projected value of its software business. 

Shares of Strategy closed up 3.3% on Friday to trade at $394.37, and have risen more than 26% over the past month, with much of those gains occurring in recent weeks. MSTR has spiked more than 36% year-to-date, and came within a dollar of matching its 2025 peak price on Thursday ahead of the earnings report.

Bitcoin was recently trading at about $96,700, roughly flat over the past 24 hours. BTC has climbed 14% over the past month amid an upturn in digital asset markets that recaptured ground lost from January through March. 

“MSTR now trades at 2.13x its net asset value, a level that we view as attractive given the company’s demonstrated ability to create shareholder value through its treasury operations,” Palmer wrote in repeating his buy rating.

Bernstein analysts set a $600 price target for Strategy in their note Friday. The firm spotlighted its addition of $10 billion in Bitcoin and scaling of its “capital program to 42:42 from 21:21.” 

“We continue to like MSTR as the most scalable Bitcoin vehicle tapping into large institutional pools unable to access Bitcoin/spot ETFs,” the analysts wrote, noting that the company continued to trade at a premium to its Bitcoin net asset value. 

“We continue to value Strategy using a sum-of-the-parts approach, combining the enterprise value of its software business and its Bitcoin holdings,” Bernstein wrote.

Edited by Andrew Hayward