Why is Strive more aggressive than Strategy when it comes to financing and buying cryptocurrencies?

TL;DR：

• Strive increased its holdings by 6,182 BTC in one 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 the value of its holdings, 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 the value of their holdings, respectively. These ratios do not account for cash and other assets.

• The SATS fixed annualized dividend rate is 15%, with an initial issuance price of $90 per share, and the annual dividend is approximately 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 mainly raise cash dividends through new financing.

• Strive's management views increasing the proportion of preferred capital as a means to strive for long-term outperformance against Bitcoin; Strategy has included discounted repurchases of STRC in its capital allocation to reduce future dividend demands. The public financing purposes of both companies are not limited to buying coins.

As the DAT craze fades, there are not many publicly traded companies holding and buying Bitcoin, and even MicroStrategy has started selling coins. At this time, a more aggressive Bitcoin DAT company than MicroStrategy has emerged, which is 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 and listing in 2025, the assets managed by its asset management business had exceeded $2 billion. This scale refers to client assets, not the company's own funds available for buying coins.

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, which was 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. In November 2024, when the company launched its wealth management business, 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 at that time was primarily for asset allocation for clients; subsequently, the company further chose to finance through a listed entity and hold Bitcoin on its own balance sheet.

In May 2025, Strive announced plans to merge with Nasdaq-listed Asset Entities and completed the transaction on September 12 of the same year, continuing to trade under the ASST code. The merger completion announcement disclosed that the company secured approximately $750 million in equity financing, with up to approximately $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 directly holding Bitcoin as its main goal after going public. In addition to directly buying Bitcoin through financing, Strive is also expanding its reserves through acquisitions. On January 16, 2026, the company completed its 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 achieve long-term returns exceeding Bitcoin itself. Perpetual preferred stock was not a recent addition to its tools: 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 launches of SATA and SATS are specific implementations of this financing path; whether it can outperform Bitcoin remains a strategic goal of the company, not an already achieved result.

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

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 additionally used 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 plan to issue up to $1 billion at market price (ATM). Strive's management stated that they hope to achieve long-term outperformance against Bitcoin by increasing the proportion of preferred capital; Strategy's second-quarter announcement had already proposed to continue repurchasing when STRC is below $100 based on price and liquidity. Based on a unified coin price calculation, Strive's preferred capital as a proportion of the value of its holdings and the annualized dividend as a proportion of the value of its holdings are both higher than those of Strategy. Compared to the scale of their holdings, the differences in financing structures 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 distribution and liquidation allocation lower than SATA and higher than common stock. SATA, on the other hand, 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.

Management has provided a clear explanation of the issuance purpose. Chairman and CEO Matt Cole stated in the announcement of the completion of the issuance that the company believes maintaining a high Amplification Ratio is an important driver for long-term outperformance against Bitcoin, and SATS adds a financing tool to achieve that goal. This metric is calculated by dividing the total amount of preferred stock and debt by the value of the holdings; 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, quoted by The Block, analyst Mark Palmer believes 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 raised its 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 issuance of SATS, and its subsidiary StoneX Financial Inc. is also one of the sales agents for the subsequent ATM plan.

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

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

As of October 23, Strive had 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 lists convertible bond principal at approximately $6.714 billion and preferred stock nominal amount at approximately $13.347 billion, totaling approximately $20.061 billion. The above comparison only includes convertible bond principal and preferred stock nominal amounts, not covering all accounting liabilities of both companies.

To unify the comparison, assuming a BTC price of $80,000 for static calculations: Strive's value of holdings is $3.44 billion, with the preferred stock nominal amount accounting for about 61.1%; Strategy's value of holdings is approximately $67.881 billion, with the combined proportion of convertible bond principal and preferred stock nominal amount at 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 the two classes of preferred stock total approximately $287 million, accounting for about 8.4% of the value of its holdings; Strategy's official website discloses annualized dividends and interest of approximately $1.509 billion, accounting for about 2.2% of the value of its holdings. Strategy's STRC currently has an annualized dividend rate of 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 held 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 held 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 holdings per share reflects another change. Based on the fully diluted share count disclosed by Strive, from October 16 to 23, the amount of holdings per share increased from approximately 29,039 satoshis to 33,066 satoshis, an increase of about 13.9%. The calculation only divides the number of BTC by the number of shares without deducting the preferential rights of SATA and SATS, nor deducting dividends; it does not equal the returns received by common stock investors during the same period.

Two companies with the same name or similar indicators cannot be directly mixed. The Debt on the Strategy official website only includes convertible bond principal, and Net Leverage is that debt minus dollar assets divided by the value of BTC holdings, excluding preferred stock; its Amplification is BTC Reserve divided by Net Reserve, which is different from Strive's percentage definition. This article uniformly compares based on the nominal amount of securities and does not treat it as an accounting liability ratio or actual stock price leverage.

IV. After repaying debts, how does Strive pay high dividends?

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

Perpetual preferred stock has no fixed maturity date, but the SATS documents reserve the right for cash buybacks under specific circumstances. In the event of significant changes defined by the contract, holders can request the company to repurchase at the nominal amount per share plus accumulated unpaid dividends; payments are 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 detailed in the prospectus. The ATM prospectus supplement dated October 26 disclosed that Strive had increased the dividend reserve with existing cash and securities at the time of the initial issuance settlement, calculating approximately $1.575 billion for the first 18 months of SATS dividends 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 listed 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 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 began paying dividends on business days starting 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 a record date of November 6 and a payment date of November 9.

V. Strategy continues to repurchase STRC, Strive continues to expand financing

The arrangement for Strategy to repurchase STRC was disclosed earlier than the weekly announcement in October. In the second-quarter earnings announcement on July 30, CEO Phong Le stated that if STRC falls 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 had 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. The 8-K submitted by Strategy on October 26 showed that the company repurchased 2,068,459 shares of STRC, spending approximately $204.9 million. The document listed the use of USD Reserve as supporting preferred stock dividends and debt interest payments, while the use of USD Cash was listed for buying coins, replenishing reserves, and other capital management activities.

Strive's new issuance plan also retains multiple uses. The announcement on October 26 listed not only buying Bitcoin, operating capital, and other investments but also paying cash dividends on preferred stock 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 of $1 billion is an issuance limit, not received funds, nor a confirmed new coin-buying budget.

As of the above disclosure date, Strive has repaid interest-bearing debts and expanded its holdings through two series of perpetual preferred stock; Strategy retains convertible bonds and multiple series of preferred stock while continuing to repurchase STRC. Based on a BTC price of $80,000, Strive's preferred capital ratio is approximately 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.