Bernstein sees Strategy stock rising 226% as Bitcoin shows signs of bottoming

Bernstein reaffirmed an Outperform rating on Strategy (MSTR) and a $450 price target, implying 226% upside from Monday’s $138.20 close. The call rests on the view that Bitcoin has likely found a floor and on confidence in the company’s preferred-share funding engine and balance sheet.

Strategy’s capital plan centers on perpetual preferred instruments, led by STRC, launched in July 2025. STRC pays a monthly cash dividend of 11.5%. Over the past three months, its 30-day average daily trading volume rose 65% to $220 million. The preferred trades on retail platforms such as Robinhood and SoFi Invest. Institutional holders, including FMR, BlackRock, Capital Group and VanEck, own about 23% of the outstanding supply, according to the firm’s note.

Year to date, Strategy raised $2.1 billion through STRC, including $1.2 billion in the week of March 9–15, and deployed $2.2 billion to acquire about 29,400 Bitcoin via STRC-linked at-the-market offerings. Preferred securities now represent $10 billion of the company’s $18 billion in total debt and preferred equity. Convertible debt maturities begin in 2028. The report pegs annual financing costs at $1.1 billion, including $35 million of interest and $1.05 billion of preferred dividends.

On liquidity and leverage, the balance sheet carries $56 billion in Bitcoin and cash against $18 billion of total debt. Cash reserves cover 25 months of dividend and interest payments. The $54 billion Bitcoin position would cover annual financing costs for roughly 50 years at current levels, the analysts estimated. Leverage stands at 20% to 30% of Bitcoin net asset value. The shares have typically traded at a premium to Bitcoin holdings; the current $64 billion enterprise value reflects a 16% premium versus a 57% average since August 2020.

Bernstein’s Bitcoin view highlights ETF demand and constrained supply. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $2.2 billion of net inflows over the past four weeks, trimming year-to-date net outflows to $364 million against a $90 billion asset base. ETFs now hold 6.1% of the outstanding supply. On-chain data show 60% of coins have been inactive for more than a year. Bitcoin has outpaced gold by 25% since the start of the Iran conflict. The firm keeps a $150,000 year-end 2026 forecast and projects a cycle peak of $200,000 in 2027.

Strategy kept buying through the drawdown. The company added 89,599 BTC year to date while the asset fell 19%, funded by $7.3 billion raised through common and preferred equity. The quarter ranks as the second-largest purchase period since Strategy adopted its Bitcoin treasury approach in 2020. Holdings now total 762,099 BTC, about 3.6% of supply, with a net asset value of $53.5 billion at current prices. The note described Strategy as the “bitcoin central bank of last resort” while ETFs attract longer-term capital.

The stock has gained 10.9% over the past month and is down 57.3% over six months.

The $450 target comes from a sum-of-the-parts model that applies a 2x enterprise value-to-sales multiple to the software unit and a long-term premium of 39% to Bitcoin holdings. In the base case, Strategy grows its stack to 1.3 million BTC by 2033, equal to 6.3% of the projected supply. The financing mix assumes 22% from fixed-income instruments led by STRC and 78% from common stock at-the-market issuance.

In a bear case, Strategy’s share of supply levels off at 4.6%, and Bitcoin peaks at $200,000 in 2027 before an extended downturn. Under that scenario, the company could need to sell Bitcoin to repay out-of-the-money convertibles and preferred dividends if its capital program does not scale.