When Strategy held its annual conference, Strategy World, in Las Vegas last month, attendees heard a lot about how digital assets are reshaping corporate balance sheets. However, Bitcoin may not be in as much of the spotlight this year.
While co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor still touts the assets that transformed the company, as he always does in public, this year’s focus was on STRC, the company’s floating rate preferred stock. TD Cowen’s Lance Vitanza says so.
“It felt like every other panel was focused on STRC,” said the investment bank’s managing director of equity research. decryption. “For the first time, the company has revealed that (…) it is spending all its time in terms of marketing, promotion and building an ecosystem.”
Saylor said STRC could be of interest to “all walks of life,” including retirees. The introduction of the product, which currently has an annualized rate of return of 11.5%, has concentrated power between companies, and analysts say it could either energize the largest cryptocurrency market or make it vulnerable through forced sales.
Since the conclusion of its two-day gathering in Las Vegas last month, Strategy has raised more than $1.5 billion through STRC. This amount represents 33% of STRC’s market capitalization, which includes last year’s $2.5 billion initial public offering. Strategy recently recorded its largest Bitcoin purchase so far this year, adding: worth more than $1.5 billion in one week STRC sales are strong.
Unlike Strategy’s other preferred stocks, STRC is designed to trade near its $100 par value. If the price rises above par, Strategy will issue more shares to expand its Bitcoin holdings. If the price falls below, the company could increase its dividend with the goal of creating demand that pulls the stock back toward STRC’s $100 target.
At Strategy’s second-quarter earnings conference last year, Thaler said: assumed As a consumer product, STRC can be considered the company’s “iPhone moment.”
A few months later, Strive, an asset management company co-founded by Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswami, debuted SATA. This product, modeled after STRC, currently pays 12.75% annually. Strive has allocated $50 million of its own money to Strategy’s product.
“We already had about $140 million in cash sitting there, obviously,” CEO Matt Cole said. decryption. “I think this is a trillion-dollar opportunity. STRC will play a big role for years to come, and SATA will play a big role as well.”
Strive and Strategy are in similar positions when it comes to the value of their companies relative to the value of their Bitcoin holdings.
Considering each company’s market capitalization, debt, and cash, they trade at a slight premium compared to their digital asset stockpiles. This means that issuing common stock to buy Bitcoin, a once common method, no longer changes much in terms of their stated goal of incrementally increasing Bitcoin per share over time.
“Digital credit”
Sam Callahan, Director of Bitcoin Strategy at OranjeBTC, said the genesis of Strategy’s symbiotic relationship with other Bitcoin buying companies via STRC happened on the Las Vegas stage. decryption.
He said the Brazil-based Bitcoin treasury firm revealed Strategy’s allocation in STRC for the first time at Strategy’s conference, explaining that the $11 million position is a milestone for the company, which manages 3,723 Bitcoin.
With an average purchase price of $105,000 per bitcoin, Callahan said the company’s exposure to STRC has strategic advantages compared to dominant assets such as cash and U.S. Treasuries.
“We have expenses, vendors, taxes, and they are all priced in fiat (currency),” he said. “We believe in Bitcoin and Bitcoin-backed securities like STRC, and actually think Bitcoin is better suited as a Treasury reserve asset for short-term cash needs.”
According to the Bitcoin Treasury, OranjeBTC is the 25th largest listed holder of Bitcoin. callahan framed This is a win-win when it comes to STRC, he said, as Strategy could use its proceeds to buy Bitcoin, which could widen the company’s lead, while OranjeBTC could effectively drive demand for the assets its fortunes primarily ride on.
Callahan raised the possibility that OranjeBTC is using STRC to capture spreads. He added that the company is allocating 20% of its Bitcoin holdings to “yield generation strategies” and will be able to borrow its stash for less than what STRC is currently paying.
Saylor promotes STRC as a “digital credit,” but the product technically lacks the legal protections and collateral requirements associated with traditional debt. Unlike actual credit, STRC is an unsecured asset and there are no pledges of collateral, security interests, or guarantees on a company or other entity’s Bitcoin holdings.
Strategy’s Bitcoin purchases have accelerated in recent weeks on the back of increased issuance of STRC preferred stock.
Last week, Strive Asset Management invested $50 million in dividend-paying products.
“This will continue to evolve and increase in a snowballing manner”… pic.twitter.com/BawaOtWZTA
— Decrypt (@DecryptMedia) March 23, 2026
Still, TD Cowen’s Vitanza said it makes sense for Strategy to suggest that STRC is indirectly backed by Bitcoin, as it has suggested that the company could use its $51 billion holdings to redeem STRC investors if it felt the need to and “live another day without destroying its ability to issue in the capital markets.”
Being able to issue on the capital markets is key for the strategy, especially since the company plans to fund STRC’s dividend by selling common stock, which has fallen nearly 58% to $138 over the past six months. Yahoo Finance. This year, TD Cowen analysts maintained We gave Strategy a Buy rating and lowered the price target to $440.
Given that Strategies currently has a $1 billion annual dividend obligation, it’s unlikely the company will run out of cash anytime soon, Vitanza said. That’s partly because the company added $2.5 billion to its cash reserves last year.
Still, Strategy’s dividend liability doesn’t reflect all of the costs it could face in the coming years, as it has $8.2 billion in convertible debt due in 2028. If Strategy’s stock price rises by a certain amount, investors can exchange their debt for common stock.
Thaler himself says that with Strategy, you can: withstand a steep decline By tapping into a trove of 763,000 Bitcoins, they raised the price of Bitcoin to $8,000. In Myriad, decryption Parent company DASTAN, Traders Foresaw The chance of it happening this year is 18%.
On Monday, Strategy Inc. used common stock proceeds to raise about 1,000 Bitcoins for $77 million. Meanwhile, Bitcoin recently hovered around $71,000, 44% below October’s all-time high of $126,000, the newspaper reported. CoinGecko.
If Bitcoin prices recover, Vitanza expects the company to lower STRC’s dividend, saying 8.5% is an achievable target within the next few years. “By definition, that means the equipment is now safer,” he added.
Nevertheless, institutional investors are trying to understand the conditions under which Strategy may decide to suspend STRC’s dividend and what that means for the company’s broader capital structure, Vitanza said. Those investors are keen to “do their homework,” he added.
