Are You Confused about MSTR Accretion - get in here and learn something

Seems a lot of newer members of the sub would benefit from conversation and DD on MSTR fundamentals. So I'm going to run a series of data driven posts (leaving bias out) that simply look at the mechanics of MSTRs business - data and figures. Today we're exploring accretion, and how it has impacted long term shareholders the last 5 years.

To start... one of the common misconceptions we've seen from new posters that seem confused about accretion as it relates to dilution. To start, mNAV is only part of the story with MSTR... and it's expansion and contraction can give sizable gains or losses in the short term (like what we've seen the last few months from its recent high to low for the trailing 12 months), but accretion is the thing that makes MSTR so powerful in the long run for shareholders. mNAV expanding to 4.0 from 2.0 can double the share price... and when it shrinks back to 1.45 it can be responsible for 65% drop (one question you might ask is "how did mNAV drop from 4.0 to 1.46 and we're only down 50%? not 65% - this is the accretion we're going to explore in this post - it's a constant tailwind for MSTR against BTC, and the reason it will always out perform BTC in the long run). So with that in mind I want to stripe away mNAV and simply look at the business of accretion here...

I looked back at the the last five years and picked dates where mNAV was relatively close to it's current level... this helps normalize this underlying figure that seems to fluctuate based on BTC momentum, and let's us see what MSTR as a company is actually producing for shareholders (accretion) instead. Worth noting, in 2022 and 2023 mNAV never got up to 1.6 levels, so I picked the closest I could find.

The data:

Accretion Performance:

If we were to invest $10,000 into BTC on December 27th 2020 we would profit from BTC appreciation only. The last five years would have looked something like this:

The total return in BTC over the last 4.2 years is about 248%

Alternatively if we were to invest that same $10,000 into MSTR shares on December 27th, 2020, we would profit from both the increase in share price from accretion as well as BTC movement. The last give years would have looked something like this:

You'll note that mNAV was 1.67 on December 27th 2020... and it's 1.61 this week. This means, the premium the market is paying for MSTR is actually lower right now, despite this MSTR has a 777% return while BTC has had a 248% return over the last five years because of this accretion added to shareholder value.

Another way to look at this... despite buying MSTR shares when mNAV was at 1.67 ... in order for your investment to drop below the returns of BTC over the last 5 years, you would need mNAV to drop to 0.63 to even these out.

In a real sense, MSTR has more than tripled the returns of BTC because of the accretion captured for shareholders over the last 5 years. So far in 2025, they have already accreted over 6% against BTC... this won't stop...

So while many in the short term focus on mNAV... and mNAV is a great indicator of where to enter (and potentially were to exit) positions... in the long run... you could have bought in at mNAV of 4.0 in 2020 and you'd still be doing better than having invested in BTC instead.

This is the power of the accretion the MSTR is producing for shareholders. Important to note, all dilution is factored into these numbers.

Edit: typo

Edit2: Added accretion gained between each date to the last chart. The more products MSTR does (ATM and bond converts) the higher this number is. Periods where it is negative as when the debt is deleveraged...