Bitcoin's 72% rally to start 2023 helps push Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy to its first profitable quarter in over 2 years

• Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy posted its first profit in nine quarters to start 2023.
• The largest holder of bitcoin added 7,500 tokens in the quarter as it rallied over 70%.

Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy notched its first profit in nine quarters as bitcoin rallied over 70% in the first three months of 2023.

Saylor took to Twitter to point out how his company — the largest holder of bitcoin — has outperformed its peers and tech companies since taking on its crypto investments.

—Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) May 1, 2023

MicroStrategy added 7,500 bitcoin tokens in the first quarter, bringing its total to 140,000 tokens. The enterprise software company has been stockpiling crypto — which is up roughly 73% year-to-date — since August 2020, and the average purchase price for its stash is $29,803.

At bitcoin's current price of $28,528, that values the company's holdings at about $3.9 billion.

As crypto slumped, those holdings previously resulted in impairment charges, which weighed on profits. But with the token's rally this year, MicroStrategy reported an impairment loss of $18.9 million for the quarter, down from the prior quarter's $197.6 million impairment.

And after tapping a tax benefit of $453.4 million, MicroStrategy posted net income of $461 million in the first quarter, reversing from a net loss of $249.7 million in the fourth quarter.

"The conviction in our bitcoin strategy remains strong as the digital asset environment continues to mature," chief financial officer Andrew Kang said in a statement.

Plus, per an SEC filing, those gains allowed MicroStrategy to repay its $205 million bitcoin-backed loan with Silvergate Bank in March, a bank that had shuttered that month. The total MicroStrategy paid was $161 million.

"MicroStrategy repaid its $205M Silvergate loan at a 22% discount," Saylor tweeted at the time.