MicroStrategy booked a $917.8 million charge in Q2 on account of the impairment in the value of its bitcoin holdings.

In another fallout of the crypto winter, bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, who is currently Chairman & CEO of business intelligence company MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), has relinquished his role of CEO with effect from August 8. The organizational change came the same day that the company announced a net loss for the second quarter of $1.062 billion, or $94.01 per share, $93.17 worse than the analyst estimate of ($0.84). The loss was primarily on account of impairment losses of $917.8 million on the company’s bitcoin holdings. (Businesswire)

Michael Saylor to focus on bitcoin

As of August 8, 2022, Michael Saylor will assume the new role of Executive Chairman and Phong Le, the Company’s President, will serve as the Company’s new Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors.

Saylor, who founded the company in 1989, will remain the Chairman of the Board of Directors and an executive officer of the Company.

“I believe that splitting the roles of Chairman and CEO will enable us to better pursue our two corporate strategies of acquiring and holding bitcoin and growing our enterprise analytics software business,” said Saylor in a statement. “As Executive Chairman I will be able to focus more on our bitcoin acquisition strategy and related bitcoin advocacy initiatives, while Phong will be empowered as CEO to manage overall corporate operations.”

Saylor pioneered investments in bitcoin by listed corporates in August 2020. He steadily grew the size of MicroStrategy’s bitcoin holdings since then to more than 129,699 Bitcoin, worth roughly $2 billion after considering the company’s cumulative impairment losses, as of June 30.

However, a vicious bear market took hold after the crypto touched a high of $68,991 in November 2021, and at its current price of $23,381 bitcoin is down about 66% from that level. However, a slide from MicroStrategy’s Q2 earnings presentation (pictured above) shows that the MSTR stock has outperformed most other assets.

Late last month, analysts at Jefferies downgraded MicroStrategy’s stock to underperform from hold, with a price target of $180.

MicroStrategy closed Tuesday at $278.26.

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