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His shares in bitcoin hoarder Strategy may have fallen in the nearly two years since he bought them, but plastic surgeon Ben Stong is unbothered. The doctor believes that “the market doesn’t understand” the US company, which has spearheaded aggressively raising money to buy bitcoin, but whose shares have plunged dramatically.
“I don’t really look at the share price as a value of the actual shares because the whole entire market is mispricing Strategy,” said Stong, whose clinic in Atlanta accepts payment in bitcoin and who first bought Strategy shares in the spring of 2024.
For diehard retail investors, Wall Street’s scepticism of Strategy’s business model is irrelevant and overblown. They are hoping to be proved right in 2026.
Strategy’s success in becoming the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin began largely thanks to an army of retail traders buying its shares and trumpeting its success, often looking for an easy way to make supercharged bets on the price of bitcoin.
Founder Michael Saylor is viewed almost as a cult figure, celebrated for defying most of established finance by building a company almost entirely based on bitcoin.
“I see him in the same category as people like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs — visionary leaders who are able to think outside the box and pioneer entirely new approaches,” said a 30-year old British pharmacist who has about £83,000 in Strategy shares. “I look up to Saylor, and I’m genuinely grateful for the work he’s done,” he added.
Strategy has since 2020 continuously raised money from stock and bond markets and spent it on buying bitcoin. Bitcoin evangelist Saylor has led a global movement, proselytising the power of the cryptocurrency to thousands of investors and company executives around the world.
Strategy’s shares soared in late 2024 and were at near record highs last summer. But they have since plunged, as big investors and Wall Street analysts question whether the business model is sustainable, at a time when bitcoin’s price has also fallen. The stock has halved over the past 12 months.
Some Strategy diehards believe that traditional financial players are pushing for the company’s downfall, and blame its share price slide on short sellers and big banks that published sceptical reports last year.
“There’s been some very artificial manipulation of the prices,” said Adam Graham, a 45-year-old podcaster from Idaho who has about $8,000 in Strategy stock. “I’ve lost money on everything but the preferred offerings,” Graham said, referring to types of shares that pay holders as much as 11 per cent in annual interest. Despite this, he said, “I’m not terribly concerned . . . I’m confident in the long term.”
“The market doesn’t understand it, there’s a lot of FUD out there about the stock,” said Stong, referring to fear, uncertainty and doubt, a common acronym in the crypto world often levelled at unbelievers. He added that his investment in Strategy was in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Bitcoin has lost about 4 per cent over the past year, trading at roughly $90,000, even though the US government has made crypto a national strategic priority and embarked on a concerted push to make digital assets mainstream. Fading risk appetite and worries about excess leverage sent bitcoin’s price down in October and November and have kept it low. Meanwhile, the sustainability of Strategy’s business model has been called into question, sending its shares down 63 per cent from last summer’s highs.
The British pharmacist said he was “not really fussed” about Strategy’s share price performance. He bought £29,000 worth of the stock in December as the price fell, using money he had saved for buying a house — a purchase he said had now become unattainable in the UK. “This is a multi-decade investment for me,” he added, believing that as inflation eroded his savings, bitcoin would outperform over time.
Holding Strategy stock in UK Isa accounts was more straightforward than holding bitcoin directly, he said. “Working with solicitors and mortgage brokers, they wanted to do extra checks and [it] was expensive whenever you mentioned crypto.”
One risk that was hanging over 2026 has eased for now — index provider MSCI shelved its plan to consider excluding digital asset treasury companies such as Strategy from its indices. If ejected, Strategy’s shares would probably have sunk as flows from passive, index-tracking funds disappeared.
Seemingly conscious of the sustained scepticism last year, and the waning appetite for its shares, Strategy raised money from the stock market not to buy bitcoin but to create a dollar reserve that it would use to pay investors’ dividends if necessary.
The cash reserve was boosted from an initial $1.44bn in December to $2.25bn in early January. “Tame your bear,” Saylor posted on X late last year, alongside an AI-generated image of himself with a polar bear.
Retail investors’ belief in the company relies on the hope that the price of bitcoin will rebound in 2026, defying detractors. “Everything else is basically gambling and the one true asset that will survive time is bitcoin,” said Stong.
When Strategy opened an online merchandise shop in February, the hair transplant and facial aesthetic specialist bought a sweatshirt, T-shirt and limited edition Strategy-branded Nike trainers.
Unlike its shares, the price of Strategy’s trainers on resale websites has since jumped 12-fold.
