MSTR vs IBIT: Is Strategy Stock a Better Way to Own Bitcoin?

There are two easy ways to own bitcoin in a normal brokerage account. You can buy IBIT, iShares' bitcoin ETF, which holds bitcoin and nothing else. Or you can buy MSTR, the shares of Strategy Inc (formerly MicroStrategy), a company that has spent the last six years buying bitcoin with borrowed and raised money.

They're not the same thing. So we put $10,000 in each at the close on 11 January 2024, IBIT's first day of trading, and checked the result at the close on 26 October 2026. Then we did the same for every other day you could have bought.

MSTR vs IBIT at a glance

What $10,000 became in each

MSTR finished $9,096 ahead. That's the headline most people quote. The path matters more than the end point, though.

By 20 November 2024, $10,000 in MSTR was worth $88,371. Then it fell for most of the next nineteen months, to $15,351 on 26 June 2026. That's a drop of 82.6%. IBIT peaked later, at $26,771 on 6 October 2025, and its worst fall was 53.3%.

It depends on the day you bought

Starting on IBIT's first day flatters MSTR. Very few people bought then. So we ran the same test for every close in the study: buy $10,000 of each that day, hold to 26 October 2026.

MSTR came out ahead on 107 of 699 buy days, about 15%. Most of them sit in two windows: IBIT's first seven weeks, to 1 March 2024, and the summer of 2026, near MSTR's low. Every buy from 6 March 2024 to 30 December 2025 is behind IBIT today. Buys in the first half of 2025 are worth about half what the same money in IBIT is now.

Why MSTR swings harder

Strategy doesn't just hold bitcoin. It borrows money and sells preferred stock to buy more. On 27 October 2026 it owed $6.7bn in debt and had $13.3bn of preferred stock outstanding. Both get paid before ordinary shareholders do.

That's leverage, and it shows up in the daily moves. Over the whole test, MSTR moved about 1.5 times as far as IBIT on a typical day. On the 27 days IBIT fell more than 5%, MSTR fell 8.9% on average. On the 45 days IBIT rose more than 5%, MSTR rose 11.6%. Its yearly swing, 90.8%, was about 1.9 times IBIT's.

The premium: what you pay for each $1 of bitcoin

An ETF's price stays close to the bitcoin it holds, because big traders can swap shares for bitcoin and back. IBIT closed 0.03% below its bitcoin on 23 October 2026. A company's shares have no such link. They trade at whatever the market will pay.

So we divided MSTR's price by the bitcoin behind each share. Above 1x, you're paying more than the bitcoin is worth. Below 1x, less.

In January 2025, buyers paid 2.34x: $2.34 for every $1 of bitcoin. By 26 June 2026 that was down to 0.63x, and it ended at 0.93x. That shrinking premium is why MSTR fell so much further than bitcoin. You lost on the bitcoin and on the premium at the same time.

More bitcoin per share, and more shares

Strategy's pitch is that it grows the bitcoin behind each share. When its shares trade above their bitcoin, it can sell new ones and buy more bitcoin than the new shares dilute. It held 189,150 bitcoin when IBIT launched. By 18 October 2026 it held 848,517.

Its share count grew too. From 6 January 2025 to 18 October 2026, its bitcoin rose 90% and its diluted shares rose 60%. So the bitcoin behind each share went from 0.00159 to 0.00188, up 18.2%. That's real growth. It still didn't make up for the premium shrinking from 2.34x to 0.93x.

The cost IBIT doesn't have

IBIT charges 0.25% a year. That's $25 on $10,000, and it's the whole cost.

MSTR has no fee, but its preferred stock pays dividends. On 27 October 2026 Strategy put them at $1.5bn a year. Against the $67.5bn of bitcoin it held, that's about 2.24% a year, roughly $224 on every $10,000 of its bitcoin. Interest on its debt comes on top.

Those payments have to come from somewhere. Between late May and early August 2026, Strategy sold 6,948 bitcoin. Its 8-K filings say the money went to pay distributions on its preferred stock and to refill the cash reserve it keeps for them. An ETF never has to sell its bitcoin to pay anyone but you.

Year by year

2024 was MSTR's year by a mile. In 2025 it lost almost half its value, 47.5%, while IBIT lost 6.4%. So far in 2026 they've been close.

The risks

• Bitcoin itself. IBIT lost 53.3% from its high in this test. Anything built on bitcoin can fall that far.
• The premium. MSTR's price can fall even when bitcoin doesn't, if the market stops paying extra for it. That happened through 2025.
• Debt and preferred stock. They get paid first. If bitcoin fell far enough for long enough, shareholders would come last.
• Forced selling. Strategy has already sold bitcoin to meet its preferred dividends. It may do it again.
• One company. MSTR depends on its managers' decisions. IBIT just holds bitcoin and charges a fee.

Outside the US

Here MSTR has a real advantage. It's an ordinary share listed on Nasdaq, so most international brokers sell it. IBIT is a US fund without the key information document UK and EU rules require, so most brokers there won't sell it to private investors. The local alternative is a bitcoin ETP listed in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Zurich. Compare its fee the same way.

So which one?

• You want bitcoin's price and nothing else: IBIT, at 0.25% a year. Our comparison of the bitcoin ETFs is linked below.
• You want bigger moves than bitcoin, both ways, and accept the extra costs: MSTR. Size it as a leveraged bet, not as a bitcoin holding.
• You're in the UK or EU and can't buy IBIT: a local bitcoin ETP is the plain version. MSTR is the leveraged one.
• You want to hold the coins yourself: skip both and buy bitcoin on an exchange.