Strategy finally sold Bitcoin

For years, Strategy has been buying Bitcoin with money raised from investors, promising them regular payouts.

Roughly speaking, it's similar to bonds: you lend money to the company, and in return you receive a fixed payment in U.S. dollars every quarter.

This week, one of those payments came due, but the company didn't have enough cash on hand. For the first time, it sold part of its Bitcoin holdings — 3,588 BTC, for about $216 million.

Technically, that's just 0.4% of its total Bitcoin holdings, which isn't much. However, the company's payment obligations continue to grow.

And if the company ultimately changes its approach and begins selling off its Bitcoin holdings, it could easily become the trigger for a deep correction in the crypto market.

For context, a sale of $200 million was enough to trigger a 2.5% decline. At the moment, the company still holds about $53 billion worth of Bitcoin on its balance sheet.