Author: Zhou, ChainCatcher
Bitcoin recently rebounded from around $62,000 to $80,000upward,and several publicly traded companies with Bitcoin treasuries also saw significant gains:Over the pastfour trading days, Strive has risen approximately 54%, Strategy has gained about 32%, and smaller players like Twenty One Capital have also posted double-digit rebounds.
In fact, by 2026, Bitcoin treasury companies have entered a clear phase of divergence. The largest players, such as Strategy, are no longer buying only; since the end of June this year, they have collectively sold nearly 7,000 bitcoins. Meanwhile, nearly 40% of companies in the sector have seen their stock prices fall below net asset value, with many opting to deleverage or suspend large-scale purchases.
Under these circumstances, Strive has become one of the few public market participants still consistently disclosing purchases, with the company now holding a cumulative total of 21,356 bitcoins.
The company's perpetual preferred stock, SATA, is set with a 13% annual dividend and was adjusted in June 2026 to become the first publicly traded security in U.S. history to pay dividends daily.
Although the company is currently much smaller in scale than Strategy, Strive’s buying pace and capital structure choices at this stage make it appearseemto have greater differentiation potential. CEO Matt Cole has recently made multiple public statements, repeatedly emphasizing his long-term belief in Bitcoin.
From Anti-ESG Funds to Bitcoin Treasury
Many people first learned of Strive through the Bitcoin treasury tag, but it originally had nothing to do with cryptocurrency.
In 2022, Vivek Ramaswamy and former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks co-founded Strive. The company initially launched with a single ETF, DRLL, an anti-ESG energy index fund that promotes investing without regard to environmental, social, and governance factors, quickly attracting capital from investors who align with this philosophy.
In February 2023, Ramaswamy stepped down as Executive Chairman to run for President of the United States. In April of the same year, Matt Cole succeeded him as CEO and became the de facto leader of the company’s strategy for the following years.
The real turning point occurred in 2025. By then, Strategy’s coin-holding model had largely been reflected in its stock price. From May to September of that year, Strive became a publicly traded company focused on a Bitcoin treasury strategy through a reverse merger with the Dallas-based public company Asset Entities. The transaction also included a $750 million PIPE financing, and the stock continued to trade under the ticker ASST on Nasdaq.
After the transformation, Strive quickly expanded. From September 2025 to January 2026, it acquired Semler Scientific, another Bitcoin treasury company, in an all-stock transaction, adding approximately 5,000 Bitcoin held by the target company to its own balance sheet. Upon completion of the acquisition, the combined company held approximately 12,798 Bitcoin, ranking 11th among publicly traded companies in Bitcoin holdings.
Along with this acquisition, Strive has also built its management team. Avik Roy has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer, Eric Semler, former chairman of Semler Scientific, has joined the board, and Joe Burnett has taken on the role of Vice President of Bitcoin Strategy, becoming another key spokesperson for the company.
Market sentiment can also be seen in the stock price. Initially after the transformation news was announced, ASST surged above $200, but subsequently declined through a reverse stock split and valuation correction, settling now in the low teens.
As of August 21, the company held a cumulative total of 21,356 bitcoins, 505,000 shares of Strategy STRC preferred stock with a fair value of approximately $48.57 million, and approximately $171.9 million in cash.
Not just hodling coins, Strive's product and financing design
Strive's financing tools are relatively conventional: one is the at-the-market (ATM) offering of common shares ASST, and the other is perpetual preferred shares SATA. In May of this year, alongside its first-quarter report, it announced that it had repurchased and retired all outstanding long-term notes, achieving zero debt, zero margin, and zero pledged Bitcoin.
SATA, offered by the company, is the first U.S. market-listed security to pay dividends daily, with a par value of $100 and an annualized dividend yield of 13%. Approximately $0.0516 is distributed per share each trading day, totaling approximately $13 annually over 252 trading days, precisely matching the 13% coupon rate.
SATA dropped to around $75 twice this year, in early January and in June—just three-quarters of its face value—but has since rebounded alongside Bitcoin and returned above face value.
As perpetual preferred shares, SATA and Strategy’s STRC have no maturity date, dividends are at the company’s discretion and may be deferred, and there are no mandatory redemption or liquidation clauses triggered by a drop in Bitcoin price to a certain level. This year, Strive increased the allocation for each of the ASST and SATA ATM programs by $2.1 billion.
During the steep decline of SATA in the first half of this year, Strive paused its增持 for over two months, only resuming Bitcoin accumulation in August after SATA returned to par value and the channel reopened.
As a Bitcoin treasury company, the market inevitably compares it to Strategy; the four main differences between the two companies are as follows.
First is the type of debt. Strategy accumulated a significant amount of existing convertible bonds between 2020 and 2024, such as a $3 billion zero-coupon convertible bond issued in November 2024, maturing in 2029. Over the past two years, Strategy has ceased large-scale issuance of convertible bonds and instead shifted toward repurchasing and reducing debt. Strive, on the other hand, has no convertible bond debt; Chief Investment Officer Ben Werkman stated that its prior reliance solely on equity financing, without issuing convertible bonds, enabled it to continue operating during bear markets.
The second is the HODL strategy. Strategy has been reducing leverage, repurchasing convertible bonds, and buying back STRC, having sold nearly 7,000 bitcoins this year. Strive, on the other hand, is still expanding, issuing SATA and buying bitcoins.
Third is the interest payment difference. STRC currently offers an annualized rate of 12%, with dividends paid biweekly at $0.50 per share. Strive’s SATA ispaid daily with a coupon rate of 13%.
Fourth is cross-holding. Strive purchased approximately 505,000 shares of Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, with a book value of about $48.6 million. This means holding preferred shares of a competitor as an interest-bearing reserve, and using the approximately 12% yield from STRC to support dividends for its own SATA.
Shift in narrative and management beliefs
The narrative around Bitcoin treasury is changing.
For years, the core commitment was to buy only, never sell—locking Bitcoin onto the balance sheet permanently. In 2026, this promise was broken by the largest player, Strategy. Although the amount sold was less than 1% of its total holding of 840,000 BTC, the symbolic significance is substantial.
Strive is currentlyat an earlier stagein the cycleandhasn't reachedthe pointof selling Bitcoin. The company's CEO, Cole, repeatedly emphasized his long-term belief in Bitcoin, citing structural weakness in the U.S. dollar, capital seeking scarce assets in the AI era, and Bitcoin’s gold-to-Bitcoin ratio leading the bottom. He also notedthateven if Bitcoin were to fall to one cent and remain there for 18 months, Strivewouldnot need to sell a single BTC.
Compared to this macro narrative, insiders putting their own money on the line is a more meaningful signal.Insidersbet their own money, which is a stronger signal.Cole wrotethat February 19 was the bear market bottom for ASST, when the company’s CFO, CLO, and several executives and directors bought shares on the open market; three independent directors transitioned to full-time roles within six months, demonstrating strong confidence in the team’s Bitcoin exposure, leverage structure, and mutual coordination.
However,besides the team’s conviction, there is a more practical question: how much Bitcoin did common shareholders actually gain from this high-profile purchase?
Looking solely at the growth in holdings may lead to an overestimation. For example, during the week of August 17 to 21,the company'sBitcoin reserves increased by approximately 5.48%, but the funds used to buy Bitcoin primarily came from issuing new shares; during the same period, common shares expanded from about 86.04 million to approximately 89.68 million, diluting existing shareholders by about 4.24% in one go, while the SATA preferred shares, which have priority over common shares in liquidation, also grew in size simultaneously.
After deducting dilution and the priority of preferred shares, according to the CEBE metric—that is, the Bitcoin value per common share—this week’s actual growth was only about 1.73%, rising from approximately 14,767 satoshis to 15,023 satoshis; the real figures are not always as impressive as they appear on the surface.
Howtohold strong during downturns and amplify gains during upswings?
In fact,Strive is confronting a common challenge across the treasury sector—the flywheel losing momentum during a bear market.
Strive's solution is digital credit. It treats Bitcoin as a credit asset that generates stable returns, rather than simply betting on price appreciation.
Chief Investment Officer Burnett cited Saylor’s algorithm: if Bitcoin achieves an annual growth rate of just 3.3%, the capital gains would be sufficient to cover preferred dividends, turning holding Bitcoin into a self-sustaining income-generating business—SATA’s daily dividends are the productization of this concept.
Cole believes that to maximize the expected total return of $ASST, one should strive to increase exposure to Bitcoin’s upside as much as the company can responsibly bear, while maintaining strict capital discipline.
Andthe real challenge lies in accounting for both bull and bear markets: how much downside it can withstand, and whether, if bitcoin does rise, being too conservative might cause you to miss out on gains.
During the bear market downturn,the companyavoids forced liquidationsbynot using debt,setting no margin,and adopting no financing structures that could trigger forced liquidations.However, its financing heavily relies on SATA and ASST trading at or above par or net value,and the first preview of this dependency occurred earlier this year when SATA plummeted to three-quarters of par value,causing增持 to halt for over two months.
Regarding the upside, Cole describes ASST’s capital structure as an amplification structure, which enhances the company’s exposure to Bitcoin’s price appreciation through three mutually reinforcing mechanisms: expanding the pool of scarce assets, increasing Bitcoin’s share, and adding another layer of amplification through ASST’s structure.
Strive has a smaller size, morelower liquiditymorethin,indeedoffers a more elastic, higher-beta exposure to Bitcoin.Since the beginning of this year,ASST has risen by approximately 34%, while MSTR, the Strategy’s counterpart,,has declined by about 19% over the same period; in terms of price range volatility, ASST has seen around 111% and MSTR around 76%.
Conclusion
Overall, Strive differentiates itself from Strategy with features like zero debt, daily dividends, and digital credit, sounding safer and more innovative. But when you peel back these design elements, it’s essentially still a highly volatile exposure to Bitcoin.
This exposure is facing an increasing number of alternatives. With the arrival of spot Bitcoin ETFs, as well as various structured ETFs and Bitcoin products, investors now have far more ways to gain Bitcoin exposure, intensifying competition for assets like treasury companies.
For a small company like Strive, these limitations are even more pronounced. With a smaller market cap and thinner liquidity, it’s difficult for large funds to enter or exit, limiting the pool of eligible investors.
Its advantages are equally clear: high flexibility and high beta. For those willing to endure high volatility and specifically seeking this type of exposure, this is precisely what makes it attractive.