Strive buys Strategy stocks, and Bitcoin treasury companies start nesting each other

Author: Curry, Deep Tide TechFlow

On March 11, a company called Strive announced several things.

They increased their holdings by 179 bitcoins, bringing their total to 13,311 bitcoins, worth approximately $930 million. The dividend yield on their preferred stock SATA was raised to 12.75%. Additionally, they spent $50 million to buy preferred stock STRC from Strategy.

$50 million accounts for more than one-third of Strive's corporate treasury.

What does Strive do? They hoard bitcoins. What does Strategy do? They also hoard bitcoins.

This situation has turned into: a company that hoards bitcoins used one-third of its money to buy stock from another company that hoards bitcoins.

Strive's Chief Risk Officer Jeff Walton tweeted that STRC is a "high-quality credit product with good liquidity and a risk-return ratio superior to traditional fixed income." To translate: we think this is better than government bonds.

He also did some math, saying that if the $50 million were invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, the annual interest would be around a few million. Buying STRC could yield an additional $3.9 million annually.

Sounds like a good deal.

But if you think about it, where did the money for STRC come from?

Strategy issued STRC to raise funds, and the money raised was used to buy bitcoins. STRC can pay you interest, provided that Strategy's bitcoins don't drop too much.

So the underlying logic of Strive's investment is: I believe the bitcoins I hoard will rise, and I believe the bitcoins they hoard will also rise, and only if their bitcoins rise can they pay me interest, which I will then use to hoard more bitcoins.

This is not called diversification; it's called a nested investment.

In case you don't know Strive

Many people know about Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), but not many know about Strive.

However, this company currently holds 13,311 bitcoins, worth approximately $930 million, just surpassing Tesla's holdings, ranking around tenth among publicly traded companies globally.

Strive's founder is Vivek Ramaswamy, a second-generation Indian immigrant, Harvard undergraduate, and Yale Law School graduate. In 2022, he co-founded Strive with a high school classmate in Ohio, focusing on asset management and launching ETF funds.

Early investors include PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

In just a year and a half, the fund's management scale exceeded $1 billion. But Vivek didn't stay long; he resigned in early 2023 to run for President of the United States. He didn't compete well in the Republican primaries against Trump and has since shifted to run for Governor of Ohio. Interestingly, both Trump and Musk have endorsed him...

After Vivek left, the new CEO is Matt Cole, who previously managed $70 billion for California's public employee pension fund and comes from a traditional finance background. However, he made a rather unconventional decision last year.

In September 2025, Cole announced that Strive would transform from a fund company into a "bitcoin vault company." They spent $675 million to buy over 5,800 bitcoins at an average price of $116,000. In the same month, they announced the acquisition of another publicly traded company, Semler Scientific, resulting in a combined bitcoin holding of over 10,000 bitcoins.

Today, six months later, their holdings have increased to 13,311 bitcoins.

A fund company established in 2022 has become one of the top ten corporate bitcoin holders in just three years. The speed is astonishing, prompting one to ask a question:

What money was used to buy these bitcoins?

Nested Stock Issuance

Where did Strive get the money to buy bitcoins? They raised it by issuing stock.

In November last year, Strive issued a preferred stock called SATA, which investors bought, and Strive pays quarterly interest, currently at an annualized rate of 12.75%. The money raised was used by Strive to buy bitcoins.

This strategy was not invented by Strive. The inventor is Michael Saylor.

Saylor's company, Strategy, holds over 730,000 bitcoins, making it the largest corporate bitcoin holder in the world. Last year, he launched a similar product called STRC, which investors buy, and Strategy pays interest, currently at an annualized rate of 11.5%. The money raised is also used by Strategy to buy bitcoins.

Up to this point, the two companies were operating independently, with the same logic but no connection.

However, the transaction on March 11 connected the two lines. Strive spent $50 million to buy STRC.

The chain now looks like this:

Strategy issues STRC to raise money to buy bitcoins, Strive buys STRC to earn interest, and then Strive issues its own SATA to raise money to continue buying bitcoins and STRC.

Layer upon layer, each layer pays double-digit interest to investors, and the confidence to pay interest at each layer comes from the same thing: bitcoins must not crash.

If bitcoins rise, everyone makes money. If bitcoins fall, everyone's interest is at risk, but no layer can independently stop the loss because your assets are someone else's liabilities.

Three layers of products, three layers of interest, three layers of investors. The underlying asset is the BTC that cannot fall.

Meanwhile, Strive's own stock ASST recently hit a 52-week high of $268 but is now below $9, having dropped 97%. On the day they announced the purchase of STRC (March 11), the stock price only rose by 5.52%.

At the end of October last year, ASST briefly fell below $0.80, nearly 50% below its net asset value based on its bitcoin holdings.

So the picture looks like this: a company holding $930 million in bitcoins has a market value of only over $500 million. Its stock price has dropped 97% from its peak. Yet the management is still doubling down—buying more bitcoins, buying STRC, and raising interest on SATA.

However, Strategy's own stock MSTR has already fallen for eight consecutive months this year. Bitcoin has retraced significantly from last year's highs.

Yet everyone in this chain is doubling down.

In the first two months of this year, Strategy bought 66,000 bitcoins, more than any previous full year. Strive, while increasing its bitcoin holdings, also spent $50 million to buy STRC. The dividend yield on SATA has risen from 10% at launch to 12.75%. The dividend yield on STRC has also increased from 10% to 11.5%.

As interest rates rise, it means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain investors, necessitating higher prices.

Data shows that over 200 publicly traded companies have now announced the adoption of a "bitcoin vault strategy." Before 2025, this number was fewer than 30.

Saylor invented a new play, and 200 companies copied the homework. Now, they are starting to buy each other's issued products.

When everyone's bets are placed on the same table, the difference between "structured financing" and "concentrated gambling" may just be a few more arrows drawn on a PowerPoint slide.