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 own preferred stock SATA’s dividend rate was raised to 12.75%. Additionally, it spent $50 million to buy Strategy’s preferred stock STRC.

Fifty million dollars, more than one-third of Strive’s corporate treasury.

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

The story becomes: a Bitcoin-hoarding company uses more than one-third of its funds 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 U.S. Treasuries.

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 Strive get the money to issue STRC?

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

So, the underlying logic of Strive’s investment is: the Bitcoin I hoard will go up, the Bitcoin they hoard 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 a layered scheme.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Strive:

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

Now, this company holds 13,311 Bitcoin, worth about $930 million, just surpassing Tesla’s holdings, ranking around tenth among publicly listed companies worldwide.

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.

After a year and a half, the fund’s assets under 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 is now running for Ohio governor. Interestingly, Trump and Musk have endorsed him…

After Vivek’s departure, the CEO who took over was Matt Cole, who previously managed $70 billion at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and comes 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.

Half a year later, the holdings grew to 13,311 coins.

A fund 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?

Layered Stock Schemes

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

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

This approach isn’t original to Strive. It was pioneered 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 in, and Strategy pays interest, currently at an annual rate of 11.5%. The funds raised are also used to buy Bitcoin.

Up to this point, both 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 its STRC to earn interest, and Strive issues its own SATA to raise funds, continuing to buy Bitcoin and STRC.

Layer upon layer, each paying investors double-digit interest, with the underlying security being the same: Bitcoin must not fall 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 that can’t drop in value.

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

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

So, the picture is: a company holding $930 million in Bitcoin has a market cap of just over $500 million. Its stock price has fallen 97% from its high. Yet, management continues to buy more Bitcoin and STRC, and increase interest payments on SATA.

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

But everyone on this chain keeps adding more.

In the first two months of this year, Strategy bought an additional 66,000 Bitcoin—more than in any full previous year. Meanwhile, Strive increased its Bitcoin holdings and spent $50 million on STRC. SATA’s dividend yield has risen from 10% at listing to 12.75%. STRC’s dividend yield also increased 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 a “Bitcoin vault 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” may just be a few arrows drawn on a PPT.