Why is Strive More Aggressive than Strategy in Financing Bitcoin?

TL;DR:

· Strive increased its holdings by 6,182 BTC in a week and announced a new issuance plan of up to $1 billion after completing a $630 million SATS issuance; during the same period, Strategy did not buy or sell BTC and spent about $204.9 million to repurchase STRC.

· Assuming a BTC price of $80,000, Strive's preferred stock nominal amount accounts for about 61.1% of its holding value, while Strategy's convertible bonds and preferred stock together account for about 29.6%; the annualized dividends or dividend and interest expenses for both are approximately 8.4% and 2.2% of their holding values, respectively. These ratios do not account for cash and other assets.

· SATS has a fixed annualized dividend rate of 15%, with an initial issuance price of $90 per share, resulting in an annual dividend of about 16.7% of the total raised amount. The prospectus disclosed that the company has established a reserve equivalent to 18 months of dividends for the first batch of SATS and expects to primarily raise cash dividends through new financing.

· Strive's management views increasing the proportion of preferred capital as a means to achieve long-term outperformance against Bitcoin; Strategy has incorporated the discounted repurchase of STRC into its capital allocation to reduce future dividend demands. The public financing purposes of both companies are not limited to buying Bitcoin.

As the DAT craze fades, there are few publicly traded companies holding and buying Bitcoin, with even MicroStrategy starting to sell. At this time, a Bitcoin DAT company more aggressive than MicroStrategy has emerged: Strive.

1. Who is Strive: From Anti-ESG Asset Management Company to Bitcoin Treasury

Strive (NASDAQ: ASST) was not initially a Bitcoin treasury company. In 2022, biopharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy co-founded Strive with Anson Frericks, who previously served as president of Anheuser-Busch Sales and Distribution Company, starting with asset management. Ramaswamy later participated in the U.S. Republican presidential primary. The company gained attention early on for opposing the incorporation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals into corporate decision-making, advocating that companies and asset managers should prioritize financial returns for shareholders. In August 2022, Strive launched its first ETF; by the time of its merger listing in 2025, the assets under management had exceeded $2 billion. This scale refers to client assets, not the company's own funds available for buying Bitcoin.

Currently, the company's strategy is led by Chairman and CEO Matt Cole. According to the company's annual report, Cole worked for 15 years in the global fixed income department of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) before joining Strive, managing over $70 billion in actively managed fixed income assets. He joined Strive in 2022, became CEO in 2023, and will serve as chairman after the merger in 2025. Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Pham was the company's first employee and executive at its founding, previously working at Roivant Sciences, founded by Ramaswamy, and served as Ramaswamy's chief of staff, with a background in corporate finance and transactions.

Strive's layout for Bitcoin predates its treasury business. When the company launched its wealth management business in November 2024, it proposed to include Bitcoin in client portfolios. At that time, the company listed global debt levels, long-term inflation, geopolitical pressures, and potential currency controls as risks it hoped to hedge by allocating Bitcoin. The arrangement was primarily for asset allocation for clients; subsequently, the company chose to finance through a listed entity and hold Bitcoin on its own balance sheet.

On May 16, 2025, Strive announced plans to merge with Nasdaq-listed Asset Entities, completing the transaction on September 12 of the same year, continuing to trade under the ASST code. The merger announcement disclosed that the company secured approximately $750 million in equity financing, with up to an additional $750 million potentially coming from the exercise of related warrants. Strive aims to increase the number of Bitcoin per share and strive for long-term outperformance against direct Bitcoin holdings as a primary goal post-listing. In addition to directly buying Bitcoin through financing, Strive is also expanding its reserves through acquisitions. On January 16, 2026, the company completed the acquisition of Semler Scientific, incorporating its existing Bitcoin reserves and operating business into the merger.

Regarding why it adopted this strategy, the company explained in regulatory filings that it views Bitcoin's investment performance as a threshold return for capital allocation, planning to combine direct accumulation of Bitcoin with other investment strategies to seek long-term returns exceeding Bitcoin itself. Perpetual preferred stock was not a recent addition to its toolkit: shortly after going public, Strive announced plans to issue such securities to finance Bitcoin purchases and amplify the Bitcoin exposure of common shareholders. The subsequent launch of SATA and SATS is a concrete implementation of this financing path; whether it can outperform Bitcoin remains a strategic goal for the company, not an already achieved result.

2. Issuing 15% Dividend Preferred Stock, Strive Accelerates Financing to Buy Bitcoin

On October 26, Strive disclosed that it purchased 6,182 BTC from October 17 to 23, increasing its holdings to 43,000 BTC. On the same day, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy, NASDAQ: MSTR) disclosed that it did not buy or sell Bitcoin from October 19 to 25, maintaining its holdings at 848,517 BTC, and spent about $204.9 million to repurchase STRC preferred stock.

Before these announcements, Strive had just completed a $630 million issuance of SATS perpetual preferred stock and subsequently established a maximum $1 billion at-the-market (ATM) issuance plan. Strive's management stated that it hopes to achieve long-term outperformance against Bitcoin through a higher proportion of preferred capital; Strategy's second-quarter announcement had already proposed that when STRC is below $100, it would continue to repurchase based on price and liquidity. Calculating at a uniform coin price, Strive's preferred capital as a proportion of holding value and annualized dividend as a proportion of holding value are both higher than those of Strategy. Compared to the holding scale, the differences in financing structure and ongoing cash expenditures between the two companies better explain the aggressiveness of Strive's expansion strategy.

The initial issuance of SATS completed on October 20 sold a total of 7 million shares at an issuance price of $90 per share, raising a total of $630 million, not including underwriting fees and issuance expenses. SATS pays a fixed annualized dividend of 15% based on a nominal amount of $100 per share, with both the dividend and liquidation distribution being lower than SATA but higher than common stock. SATA is a security with a floating dividend rate, currently with an annualized dividend rate of 13%. The company positions the former as a product focusing on income stability and the latter as a product focusing on price stability.

The management has provided a clear explanation for the issuance purpose. Chairman and CEO Matt Cole stated in the issuance completion announcement that the company believes maintaining a high Amplification Ratio is a key driver for long-term outperformance against Bitcoin, and SATS has added a financing tool to achieve that goal. This metric is calculated by dividing the total amount of preferred stock and debt by the holding value; investor materials submitted on October 13 reiterated that when BTC is below $100, the management's goal is to increase and maintain this ratio above 60%.

According to a research report from StoneX on October 26, analysts believe that SATS allows Strive to finance simultaneously for two types of income-oriented investors; since it ranks lower than SATA, the raised funds increase assets without increasing the claims that precede SATA. StoneX subsequently raised the target price for ASST from $32 to $43, maintaining a buy rating. The issuance documents also show that StoneX participated in the underwriting of the initial SATS issuance, and its subsidiary StoneX Financial Inc. is also one of the sales agents for the subsequent ATM plan.

New financing also corresponds to new dividends. Based on an annual payment of $15 per share, the first batch of SATS will require an annual payment of $105 million in dividends, equivalent to about 16.7% of the total raised amount of $630 million. The 15% and 16.7% denominators are the nominal amount per share and the initial issuance price, respectively, with the latter not accounting for issuance costs.

3. Under the Same Coin Price, Strive's Preferred Capital Proportion is About Twice That of Strategy

As of October 23, Strive has 14,030,176 shares of SATA and 7 million shares of SATS, totaling approximately $2.103 billion based on a nominal amount of $100 per share. Strategy's official website data as of October 26 shows that the principal of convertible bonds is approximately $6.714 billion, and the nominal amount of preferred stock is approximately $13.347 billion, totaling about $20.061 billion. The above comparison only includes the principal of convertible bonds and the nominal amount of preferred stock, not covering all accounting liabilities of the two companies.

For a unified comparison, assuming a BTC price of $80,000: Strive's holding value is $3.44 billion, with the nominal amount of preferred stock accounting for about 61.1%; Strategy's holding value is approximately $67.881 billion, with the combined principal of convertible bonds and nominal amount of preferred stock accounting for about 29.6%. The $80,000 here is a hypothetical price, not the market quote at the time of writing.

Dividend and interest expenses are calculated at the same price. Assuming the current number of shares and dividend rates remain unchanged and dividends are fully declared, Strive's annualized dividends for both types of preferred stock total approximately $287 million, accounting for about 8.4% of the holding value; Strategy's disclosed annualized dividends and interest are approximately $1.509 billion, accounting for about 2.2% of the holding value. Strategy's current annualized dividend rate for STRC is 12%, and its outstanding convertible bonds also include zero-coupon, 0.625%, 0.875%, and 2.25% tiers.

The above ratios do not deduct cash and other securities. Strive disclosed that as of October 23, it also holds approximately $504.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, as well as STRC with a fair value of approximately $50.18 million. Strategy disclosed that as of October 25, it holds approximately $4.83 billion in USD Reserve and $242.4 million in USD Cash. These assets are not deducted from the numerator of the aforementioned ratios.

The amount of Bitcoin held per share reflects another change. Based on the fully diluted share count disclosed by Strive, from October 16 to 23, the amount of Bitcoin held per share increased from approximately 29,039 Satoshis to 33,066 Satoshis, an increase of about 13.9%. The calculation only divides the BTC quantity by the number of shares, without deducting the preferential rights of SATA and SATS, nor accounting for dividends; it does not equal the returns received by common shareholders during the same period.

The same or similar metrics from the two companies cannot be directly mixed. Strategy's official website's Debt only includes the principal of convertible bonds, and Net Leverage is that debt minus USD assets divided by BTC holding value, not including preferred stock; its Amplification is BTC Reserve divided by Net Reserve, which is defined differently from Strive's percentage definition. This article uniformly compares based on nominal amounts of securities and does not treat them as accounting leverage ratios or actual stock price leverage.

4. After Paying Off Debts, How Will Strive Pay High Dividends?

Strive stated in its second-quarter earnings announcement that as of August 7, it had no outstanding short-term or long-term debts, with Bitcoin not being collateralized and no margin requirements. The SATS prospectus in October still disclosed that the company had no consolidated debt as of October 23. In contrast, Strategy's official website lists the earliest convertible bond investor put date as September 16, 2027, corresponding to bonds maturing in 2028 with a coupon of 0.625%.

Perpetual preferred stock does not have a fixed maturity date, but the SATS documents reserve the right for cash repurchase under specific circumstances. When significant changes defined by the contract occur, holders can request the company to repurchase at the nominal amount per share plus accumulated unpaid dividends; payment is subject to conditions such as legally available funds. This right is different from the regular maturity repayment of principal.

The arrangement for dividend funds is outlined in the prospectus. The ATM prospectus supplement dated October 26 disclosed that Strive has increased the dividend reserve at the time of the initial issuance settlement using existing cash and securities, calculating approximately $157.5 million for the first batch of SATS dividends for the first 18 months at $22.50 per share. The company also stated that it expects to primarily raise cash dividends for SATS through new financing, including ATM securities issuance.

The October 26 document also lists restrictions: even if funds are sufficient, the board may still choose not to declare or under-declare SATS dividends; if SATA dividends are not fully paid, the company will be prohibited from paying SATS dividends. The document warns that under-declaring and not paying dividends may lead to a decline in SATS prices. SATS dividends are cumulative, regardless of whether they are declared or whether legally available funds exist, they accumulate according to the terms.

SATA has already started paying dividends on business days since June 16. The first dividend for SATS has also been declared: according to the October 26 document, Strive announced on October 21 that the first payment would be $0.8710 per share, with the record date on November 6 and the payment date on November 9.

5. Strategy Continues to Repurchase STRC, Strive Continues to Expand Financing

Strategy's arrangement for repurchasing STRC predates the weekly disclosure in October. In the second-quarter earnings announcement on July 30, CEO Phong Le stated that if STRC is below $100, the company plans to repurchase in a disciplined manner based on market price and liquidity, stating that discounted repurchases can reduce future preferred stock dividend demands. The same announcement disclosed that the company has established a BTC monetization plan, with a cumulative sale amount of $218.4 million as of July 26 this year.

The latest week's repurchase funds came from USD Cash. Strategy's 8-K submitted on October 26 shows that the company repurchased 2,068,459 shares of STRC, spending about $204.9 million. The document lists the use of USD Reserve as supporting preferred stock dividends and debt interest payments, while the use of USD Cash is listed for buying Bitcoin, replenishing reserves, and other capital management activities.

Strive's new issuance plan also retains multiple purposes. The October 26 announcement lists not only buying Bitcoin, operating funds, and other investments but also paying preferred stock cash dividends and repurchasing ASST common stock or SATA. The ATM prospectus supplement stipulates that sales agents are not required to sell a specific amount of securities, so the maximum $1 billion is an issuance limit, not funds already received, nor a confirmed new Bitcoin purchase budget.

As of the above disclosure date, Strive has paid off interest-bearing debts and expanded its Bitcoin holdings through two types of perpetual preferred stock; Strategy retains convertible bonds and multiple types of preferred stock and continues to repurchase STRC. Calculating at a uniform BTC price of $80,000, Strive's preferred capital proportion is about 61.1%, higher than Strategy's 29.6%, and the annualized dividend expenditure relative to holding value is also higher. This is the most direct difference in the current capital structure of the two companies.