TD Cowen lifts its bitcoin forecast but holds Strategy at $260, citing dilution

TD Cowen raised its bitcoin price forecasts this week but left its price target on Strategy (MSTR) unchanged at $260, telling clients that dilution and the company's growing stack of financial obligations will likely cap the upside common shareholders get from higher bitcoin prices, The Block reported Thursday.

Analysts Lance Vitanza and Jonnathan Navarrete kept their Buy rating. Higher bitcoin prices should lift Strategy's earnings potential, they wrote, but preferred-stock repurchases and cash-reserve building "temper the per-share benefit." Their point: buying more bitcoin doesn't automatically mean bigger gains per MSTR share, because holders of Strategy's preferred shares — STRC, STRF and STRD — have claims that sit ahead of common stock. After accounting for those, the firm said bitcoin ownership per MSTR share has been "less robust." Strategy is also parking some raised capital in cash reserves to support those preferred shares rather than buying bitcoin immediately.

On price, TD Cowen's updated model puts bitcoin near $109,000 at the end of 2026 and $280,000 by 2029 — more bullish than QCP Capital's fourth-quarter base case of $80,000 to $90,000, per the same report. Bitcoin traded near $81,300 Thursday, down about 9% year to date.

Key facts

• TD Cowen price target on MSTR: $260, unchanged; Buy rating maintained — The Block, citing the Thursday analyst note.
• MSTR shares fell ~2.5% to $150 Thursday, down ~5% year to date; the $260 target implies roughly 73% upside — The Block.
• Strategy holdings: 848,000 BTC, carrying roughly $4.5 billion in unrealized profit — The Block.
• Valuation back to ~1x net asset value, up from as low as 0.63 in June — Saylor Tracker, via The Block.
• Bitcoin forecasts: ~$109,000 end-2026 and $280,000 by 2029 (TD Cowen); $80,000–$90,000 Q4 base case (QCP Capital) — via The Block.
• Bitcoin price: ~$81,300 Thursday, down 9% YTD — The Block.

The real-world read

The honest headline here isn't the bullish 2029 number — it's that even a bank with a Buy rating is telling clients the bitcoin-up-therefore-MSTR-up reflex is broken. A rising bitcoin price flows to common shareholders only after the preferred stack and cash reserves take their cut, which is why a 73% implied upside coexists with a flat target.

Treat the forecasts as what they are: sell-side projections, not facts. TD Cowen has a Buy rating on the stock it's modeling, and its $280,000 call is miles above QCP's $80,000–$90,000 Q4 range — a spread worth remembering when any single target gets quoted as a destination. The $4.5 billion in unrealized profit is a mark-to-market snapshot at ~$81,300 bitcoin, not realized cash. And this is one secondary account of an analyst note; the underlying report wasn't published in full, so the per-share math behind "less robust" isn't independently verifiable here.

Not financial advice. Forecasts are opinions held by the firms named, not predictions of what will happen.

Sources

• The Block (reputable secondary), "Strategy shareholders face dilution drag despite brighter bitcoin forecasts, TD Cowen says," 2026-10-08 — sole source for this item; relayed TD Cowen's note, QCP Capital's forecast, and Saylor Tracker's NAV figure. The TD Cowen report itself (a sell-side note from a firm with a Buy rating on MSTR) and QCP's forecast are interested-party projections, not neutral data.