Retail investors are still holding Strategy even after the company slid into a $17.4 billion unrealized loss and its stock price kept falling. Many of them bought nearly two years ago and are still underwater today. They are not panicking. They say the share price does not match what the company is doing. For them, the focus stays on bitcoin, not daily charts or analyst notes. One of those investors is Ben Stong, who according to Financial Times, bought shares in spring 2024 and watched them sink. He says the drop does not bother him. His clinic already takes bitcoin payments. He says the wider market does not understand the company at all. “I don’t really look at the share price as a value of the actual shares because the whole entire market is mispricing Strategy,” Ben said. He added that his investment runs into the high hundreds of thousands of dollars. Retail traders keep buying while Wall Street steps back For loyal retail holders, Wall Street doubt is background noise. They believe the criticism is loud but empty. Many of them are waiting for 2026. They think time will do the talking. The company became the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin because retail traders piled in early. They wanted a fast way to bet on the coin without holding it directly. Founder Michael Saylor sits at the center of that loyalty. Most of us investors talk about him like a symbol, not a CEO. This is someone who ignored normal finance playbooks and built a company around one asset back when the entirety of Wall Street was laughing at our market. Since 2020, Strategy has raised cash again and again through stocks and bonds. Most of that money went straight into bitcoin. Saylor spent years talking up the asset to investors and executives across the world. The approach worked for a while. Shares jumped in late 2024 and sat near record highs last summer. Then the mood flipped. Bitcoin prices softened. Analysts started asking if the model could survive. Over the past twelve months, the stock lost about half its value. Share slide fuels claims of pressure and price games Some retail holders think outside forces pushed the stock down. They point fingers at short sellers and big banks that released negative research last year. Adam Graham, another retail investor, holds about $8,000 in shares. “There’s been some very artificial manipulation of the prices,” Adam said. He said he lost money on most of his holdings except the preferred shares. Those pay up to 11% a year. “I’m not terribly concerned,” he said. “I’m confident in the long term.” Ben shares that view and talks openly about FUD, short for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. He says that word gets thrown around whenever people do not believe in the stock. Meanwhile, bitcoin itself is down about 4% over the past year and trades near $90,000. That happened even as the US government made crypto a national strategic priority and pushed digital assets closer to the mainstream. Lower risk appetite and worries about heavy leverage dragged prices down in October and November and kept them weak. One major risk tied to 2026 has cooled for now. Index provider MSCI paused plans to consider removing digital asset treasury firms like Strategy from its indices. If that move happened, passive fund flows could have vanished. The company also adjusted how it raised money. Instead of using new stock sales to buy more bitcoin, it built a dollar reserve to cover dividends if needed. That reserve rose from $1.44 billion in December to $2.25 billion in early January. Saylor posted “Tame your bear” on X with an AI image of himself next to a polar bear. In February, Strategy opened an online merchandise store, even as the stock kept sliding. The trainers did the opposite. On resale sites, their prices have surged by 1100%. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter .
