MicroStrategy prices $900 million debt sale to buy more bitcoin

FILE PHOTO: A collection of Bitcoin (virtual currency) tokens are displayed in this picture illustration

(Reuters) - Major bitcoin corporate backer MicroStrategy Inc on Wednesday priced an offering of $900 million of debt through convertible notes, with the proceeds to be used for buying more of the digital currency.

The company, whose Chief Executive Officer Michael Saylor is one of the most vocal proponents of bitcoin, said proceeds of the offering will be about $879.3 million.

MicroStrategy said on Tuesday it will borrow $600 million to buy more bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency surged past $50,000 in a rally fueled by wider acceptance among investors.

Elon Musk's Tesla Inc bought $1.5 billion of the currency earlier this month and major firms such as BNY Mellon, asset manager BlackRock Inc and credit card giant Mastercard Inc have backed certain cryptocurrencies in recent weeks.

It was not immediately clear if MicroStrategy had priced its $600 million offering on Wednesday or announced a fresh debt sale. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MicroStrategy, the world's largest publicly traded business intelligence company, spent last year steadily amassing more of the currency after making its first investment in August as it soared in value.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

Latest Stories

  • Joe Biden Finally Says What A Lot Of People Are Thinking About Donald Trump

    The president said it twice -- and he's hardly alone in the sentiment.

  • Brent Bozell IV, Son Of Prominent Conservative Activist, Charged In Capitol Riot

    Online sleuths looked into Bozell because he wore the sweatshirt of a Christian school and he previously served as a girls' basketball coach.

  • Dramatic Photos Show Thousands Of Stunned Sea Turtles Rescued From Texas Storm

    Turtles get cold-stunned when water temperatures fall. One group said it was taking care of more than 2,500 after the ice storm in Texas.

  • Ghislaine Maxwell 'physically abused' by correctional officer during routine search in prison

    Ghislaine Maxwell was "physically abused" by a correctional officer during a routine search in prison, her lawyer claimed on Tuesday. Maxwell, the former partner of disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, was then threatened with retaliation after saying she would report the incident, the attorney added. Bobbi Sternheim made the allegation in a letter to New York judge Alison Nathan complaining about Maxwell’s conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn. "Recently, out of view of the security camera, Ms. Maxwell was placed in her isolation cell and physically abused during a pat down search," Ms Sternheim wrote. A week later the same team of guards "ordered" Maxwell into a shower "to clean, sanitize, and scrub the walls with a broom," the lawyer added in the letter. Maxwell’s lawyers have repeatedly complained about their client’s jail conditions in the hope of getting her released on bail. Ms Nathan most recently denied bail in December, deeming Maxwell a flight risk. Her attorneys say she is subjected to excessive surveillance, including a flashlight pointed at her cell every 15 minutes from 9:30 pm to 6:30 am. Maxwell is accused of recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who killed himself in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The daughter of late newspaper baron Robert Maxwell is due to go on trial this summer although it may be delayed due to the pandemic. Prosecutors also accuse the British socialite of lying in testimony she gave in 2016 in a defamation case filed against her by long-time Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre. Maxwell, 59, faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted in the criminal case, which covers alleged crimes from 1994 to 1997.

  • These Kitchen Gadgets Make Cooking Look Good

    We've rounded up seven of the best-designed small kitchen appliances to grace your countertopsOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for armed troops to be placed in schools on Parkland anniversary

    The National Guard was in Washington DC in response to the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters

  • Trump Fans Charged In Capitol Attack Didn't Like Antifa Getting Credit For Their Work

    Capitol attack defendants, lured to D.C. by a mass voter fraud conspiracy theory, didn't like seeing conspiracy theories steal their credit.

  • Biden Claims ‘We Didn’t Have’ a COVID Vaccine When He Took Office

    President Biden claimed at one point during a CNN town hall on Tuesday that his administration came into office with no coronavirus vaccines available. Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21, and the second dose in January. While discussing the issue of vaccine supply during the town hall, Biden initially said there were 50 million doses available when he assumed office. President Biden affirmed that Covid-19 vaccines will be widely available to the general public by the end of July. "By the end of July we'll have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American." #BidenTownHall https://t.co/K3sxmUXFdG pic.twitter.com/xTkje54Aqx — CNN (@CNN) February 17, 2021 “We came into office, there were only 50 million doses that were available. By the end of July we’ll have over 600 million doses,” Biden told host Anderson Cooper. However, Biden also said “we got into office and found out…there was nothing in the refrigerator, figuratively and literally speaking, and there were 10 million doses a day that were available.” (The Biden administration’s initial target was to administer 1 million vaccine doses per day, a pace already set by the time the president was sworn in.) “It’s one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn’t have when we came into office, but” one also needs “a vaccinator,” Biden subsequently told Cooper, when asked about the logistics of getting shots to Americans. The U.S. is currently administering coronavirus vaccine doses at a seven-day rolling average of 1.7 million per day, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker. The pace of vaccinations has risen steadily since December 15, when a New York nurse received the first shot outside of a clinical trial. The Biden administration has downplayed the efforts of the previous administration in aiding the development and distribution of COVID vaccines. Vice President Kamala Harris said that the Biden administration was “starting from scratch” on vaccine production in an interview with Axios over the weekend, contradicting Dr. Fauci, who said in January “we certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution.” Additionally, Biden addressed the stalled reopening of school districts across the U.S. during the town hall, calling reports that his administration planned to open schools for one day per week a miscommunication Biden contradicted White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said last week that the administration hoped to open schools for “at least one day a week in the majority of schools by day 100.” Psaki later said the administration was committed to opening schools five days a week on condition that coronavirus mitigation measures were in place. “Your administration had set a goal to open the majority of schools in your first 100 days. You’re now saying that means those schools may only be open for at least one day a week,” Cooper told Biden. “That’s not true. It was a mistake in the communication,” Biden said, adding that his administration’s goal was to open schools in grades K-8 for five days per week.

  • Ted Cruz's Tweet About California Energy Shortages Comes Back To Haunt Him

    The Texas senator blasted California's electricity policy when that state faced blackouts last year, but now his own state is in the same boat.

  • Chris Hayes Slams Fox News’ Latest ‘Painful Culture War Idiocy’

    "It’s a lie like Donald Trump won the election," said the MSNBC anchor.

  • Wake County 14-year-old handcuffed outside home. Police ‘failed our family,’ says mom.

    Officers handcuffed and detained the family’s 14-year-old son outside his home for over 30 minutes, refusing to allow him to seek his parents.

  • Lindsey Graham: GOP Doesn’t Have 'A Snowball’s Chance In Hell' Without Trump

    "I’m more worried about 2022 than I’ve ever been," the Trump sycophant told Fox News' Sean Hannity.

  • UK facing fresh diplomatic tensions with United Arab Emirates over 'kidnapped' Princess Latifa

    Dubai’s ruler is unlikely to be rattled by BBC Panorama’s explosive documentary about the alleged kidnapping of his daughter, as he insists that she was brought home as part of a “rescue mission.” But the saga of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Princess Latifa could quickly become a diplomatic nightmare for the wealthy Gulf state. UN officials have already begun poring over the latest video smuggled out of Dubai by the princesses’ allies, in which she claims she is being held against her will in a barricaded compound with no access to lawyers or medical help. They could then decide to pass the case on to the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for a high profile and potentially embarrassing investigation into the 71-year-old Dubai ruler. It may also heap unwelcome strain on the wealthy Gulf state’s relationship with Britain, which has a strong emphasis on security co-operation, investment and tourism.

  • Police fire rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters

    Protesters had gathered to demand the release of a primary school principal, who was detained after taking part in a widespread civil disobedience movement against the military takeover in Myanmar.Video obtained by Reuters showed police initially clashing with protesters, then firing tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators who were blocking the road.

  • Tucker Carlson Cackles As He Concocts Bonkers New Biden Conspiracy Theory

    The Fox News host is very uncomfortable with the first couple's openly affectionate relationship.

  • The Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines.

    As Texas on Tuesday entered its third night with sub-freezing temperatures and 3.3 million customers without electricity, the operator of the state's unique power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), urged Texans who still have electricity to turn off lights, unplug appliances, and turn down the thermostat. People without power took shelter elsewhere, if they could, or resorted to sometimes deadly means of generating heat. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and state legislators called for investigations — and Abbott and other prominent GOP politicians wrongly blamed frozen wind turbines and other renewable energy sources for the failures of the Texas energy grid. Texas Gov. Abbott blames solar and wind for the blackouts in his state and says "this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America" pic.twitter.com/YfVwa3YRZQ — Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) February 17, 2021 "Some turbines did in fact freeze — though Greenland and other northern outposts are able to keep theirs going through the winter," The Washington Post reports. "But wind accounts for just 10 percent of the power in Texas generated during the winter," and the losses tied to thermal plants mostly "relying on natural gas dwarfed the dent caused by frozen wind turbines by a factor of five or six." According to ERCOT, wind power generation is actually exceeding projections. One nuclear reactor and several coal-fired plants went offline, but "Texas is a gas state," Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas, told The Texas Tribune. And "gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now." Instruments and other components at gas-fired power plants iced over, and "by some estimates, nearly half of the state's natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures," as electric pumps lost power and uninsulated pipelines and gas wells froze, the Tribune reports. After a 2011 winter storm knocked out power to about 3 million Texans, a federal report warned Texas the same grid debacle would happen again if it didn't adequately weatherize its power infrastructure and increase fuel reserves — and reminded Texas that "many of those same warnings were issued after similar blackouts 22 years earlier and had gone unheeded," The Associated Press reports. "Upgrades were made following the 2011 winter storm," The Texas Tribune notes, but "many Texas power generators have still not made all the investments necessary to prevent the sort of disruptions happening to the equipment." More stories from theweek.comRepublicans evidently hope to win back suburban voters by attacking school closuresMore Republicans blame Biden for Capitol riot than fault Trump7 scathingly funny cartoons about Republicans' impeachment cowardice

  • Texas county braces for deaths from winter weather and asks for truck to hold bodies

    A Texas county is asking for additional storage for up to 50 bodies amid the winter storm.

  • Jimmy Kimmel Gives Trump Supporters An Uncomfortable Truth About The Ex-President

    The late-night host tells Trump's fans how the former president really feels about them.

  • North Korean escapee swims for six hours and crawls through drains to defect to South

    South Korea has admitted a second breach in border security in just four months after a man wearing a diving suit and flippers managed to slip across the heavily fortified crossing from the totalitarian North. The escape of the man, reported to be in his twenties, follows an audacious defection in November when a North Korean gymnast vaulted over a three-metre-high security fence without triggering any key sensors. The most recent defector was located on Tuesday after a three-hour manhunt in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South, near the coastal town of Goseong, South Korean officials said. According to a report by newswire Yonhap, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he had swum for about six hours and passed through an unprotected drainage tunnel to bypass border barricades in his quest for freedom. His footprints were found about two miles south of the military demarcation line separating the two Koreas, and troops made first sighting of him through a surveillance camera at 4.20am. He was finally captured in the so-called civilian-control zone south of the DMZ, where no civilians are allowed to travel without military permit. He claimed he was a civilian and reportedly expressed his desire to defect.

  • 20 Years After Breaking Off Our Engagement, My Ex Found Me To Explain Why She Left

    "Because I had no way to explain why our relationship ended the way it did, I never considered what she might be going through or the profound trauma she was experiencing at that time."