Strive buys Strategy stocks, and Bitcoin Treasury Company begins to intertwine with each other.

Author: Curry, Deep Tide TechFlow

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

It increased its Bitcoin holdings by 179 coins, totaling 13,311 coins worth about $930 million. Its preferred stock SATA’s dividend rate was raised to 12.75%. Additionally, it spent $50 million to buy preferred stock STRC of Strategy.

$50 million, more than one-third of Strive’s corporate treasury.

What does Strive do? It hoards Bitcoin. What does Strategy do? Also hoards Bitcoin.

This became: A Bitcoin-hoarding company used more than a third of its money to buy stock issued by another Bitcoin-hoarding company.

Strive’s Chief Risk Officer Jeff Walton tweeted that STRC is a “high-quality credit product, with good liquidity, and a risk-return profile better than traditional fixed income.” Translation: We think this is more attractive than government bonds.

He also did some math, saying that if the $50 million were used to buy U.S. Treasuries, the annual interest would be a few million dollars. Buying STRC could yield an annualized return of an additional $3.9 million.

Sounds pretty profitable.

But think carefully: where did the money for Strategy to issue STRC come from?

Strategy issues STRC to raise funds, which are then used to buy Bitcoin. STRC can pay interest, provided Strategy’s Bitcoin doesn’t drop too sharply.

So, the underlying logic of Strive’s investment is: The Bitcoin I hoard will go up, the Bitcoin Strategy hoards will also go up, and only if their Bitcoin rises can they pay me interest. I then use this interest to hoard more Bitcoin.

This isn’t diversification; it’s nested layering.

In case you don’t know about Strive

Many know Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), but few know about Strive.

But now, this company holds 13,311 Bitcoin, worth about $930 million, just surpassing Tesla’s holdings, ranking around the tenth largest publicly listed company in the world.

Strive’s founder is Vivek Ramaswamy, a second-generation Indian immigrant, Harvard undergraduate, Yale Law School graduate. In 2022, he and a high school friend founded Strive in Ohio, focusing on asset management and 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 exceeded $1 billion. But Vivek didn’t stay long; early 2023, he resigned to run for U.S. President. He didn’t win the Republican primary against Trump, and this year he’s running for Ohio governor. Interestingly, Trump and Musk have endorsed him…

After Vivek left, the CEO became Matt Cole, who previously managed $70 billion at California’s public pension fund, coming from traditional finance. But last year, he made a somewhat unconventional decision.

In September 2025, Cole announced that Strive would transform from a fund company into a “Bitcoin vault company.” It spent $675 million to buy over 5,800 Bitcoin at an average price of $116,000 each. That same month, it announced acquiring another listed company, Semler Scientific, and after the merger, its Bitcoin holdings exceeded 10,000 coins.

Today, half a year later, holdings have grown to 13,311 coins.

A fund company founded in 2022, in just three years, became one of the top ten corporate Bitcoin holders globally. The speed is astonishing, prompting a question:

Where did they get the money to buy all these Bitcoins?

Nested layering of stocks

Where did Strive’s money to buy Bitcoin come from? It issued stocks to raise funds.

Last November, Strive issued a preferred stock called SATA. Investors bought it, and Strive paid quarterly interest, currently at an annual rate of 12.75%. The raised funds were used to buy Bitcoin.

This approach isn’t unique to Strive. It was invented by Michael Saylor.

Saylor’s company Strategy owns over 730,000 Bitcoin, making it the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder. Last year, Strategy launched a similar product called STRC, where investors buy the stock, Strategy pays interest, currently at an annual rate of 11.5%. The funds raised are also used to buy Bitcoin.

Up to this point, the two companies operated independently, with similar logic, unrelated.

But on March 11, this transaction connected the two lines. Strive used $50 million to buy STRC.

The chain now looks like this:

Strategy issues STRC to raise money to buy Bitcoin, Strive buys STRC to earn interest, and Strive issues its own SATA to raise funds to buy more Bitcoin and STRC.

Layer upon layer, each paying investors double-digit interest, with the underlying security being the same: Bitcoin must not drop sharply.

When Bitcoin rises, everyone profits. When Bitcoin falls, everyone’s interest payments are at risk, but no layer can independently stop losses because your assets are someone else’s liabilities.

Three-layer products, three layers of interest, three groups of investors. The underlying asset is Bitcoin, which must not fall.

Meanwhile, Strive’s own stock ASST recently hit a 52-week high of $268 but is now below $9, a 97% drop. On the day it announced buying STRC (March 11), the stock only rose 5.52%.

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

So, the picture is this: a company holding $930 million in Bitcoin has a market value of just over $500 million. Its stock price has fallen 97% from its high. Yet, management continues to add to their holdings—buying more Bitcoin, buying STRC, and increasing the SATA dividend rate.

However, Strategy’s own stock, MSTR, has been falling for eight months straight. Bitcoin has also retreated significantly from last year’s high.

But everyone on this chain keeps adding.

In the first two months of this year, Strategy bought an additional 66,000 Bitcoin—more than any full year before. While increasing Bitcoin holdings, Strive also spent $50 million on STRC. SATA’s dividend rate has increased from 10% at listing to 12.75%. STRC’s dividend rate has also risen from 10% to 11.5%.

As interest rates climb, it becomes harder for investors to stay, so they have to pay more.

Data shows that over 200 publicly listed companies worldwide have now adopted the “Bitcoin treasury strategy.” Before 2025, this number was less than 30.

Saylor invented a new way, and 200 companies are copying it. Now, they are starting to buy each other’s products.

When everyone’s bets are on the same table, the difference between “structured financing” and “concentrated gambling” might just be a few arrows drawn on a PPT slide.