MicroStrategy stock rises 8% after company's bitcoin holdings rise to $14.6 billion

MicroStrategy shares jumped more than 8% on Friday after founder Michael Saylor said the company bought another $1.1 billion worth of bitcoin.

The stock jumped 24% for the week and is now up 124% this year.

Saylor said in a post on social media platform X that MicroStrategy's average purchase price over the four years it has been buying bitcoin is $38,585 per coin. Bitcoin is currently trading around $60,000.

MicroStrategy's stash of 244,800 bitcoins is worth $14.6 billion.

Founded in 1989, MicroStategy has a business in enterprise software and cloud-based services, but its value is now tied almost entirely to its ownership of bitcoin, effectively making the company a proxy for the world's largest cryptocurrency. It is the largest corporate holder of the asset, according to Bitcoin Treasuries.

In Saylor's Friday post, he added that the “BTC yield,” a metric introduced by MicroStrategy, is 17% for the year. The number suggests that the company created 17% more value for shareholders by selling stock to buy bitcoin.

“We're basically giving people different types of bitcoin exposure,” Saylor told CNBC in an interview this week. “MicroStrategy aims to protect Bitcoin and act as an institutional bridge between traditional, mainstream investors and Bitcoin.”

Even after this week's rally, MicroStrategy shares are off about 26% from their March highs. The stock closed Friday at $141.47.

But MicroStrategy is outperforming Bitcoin, which is up 35% for the year. Saylor said owning MicroStrategy is a way to invest in bitcoin but with different features, such as increased leverage or downside protection.

“A lot of people, they don't want to own or they can't own bitcoin,” Saylor said. Some would say, “Give me half the volatility of the S&P and the performance of Bitcoin, and I'll be perfectly happy,” he said.