Strategy and Strive Buy 2,305 BTC as Funding Models Diverge

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• Strategy used cash for both Bitcoin and STRC repurchases without tapping its ATM programs.
• Strive expanded its Bitcoin holdings by 5.4%, making its latest purchase far more consequential relative to treasury size.
• Preferred capital is becoming central to both models, shifting attention from BTC accumulation toward financing costs.

Strategy and Strive added Bitcoin at almost identical prices last week, yet the impact on their balance sheets could hardly have been more different.

According to the SEC-Filing, Strategy acquired 950 BTC for $75.7 million at an average price of $79,670, bringing its holdings to 846,000 BTC. The company has invested approximately $63.8 billion in that position at an average cost of $75,416 per coin.

Strive purchased 1,355 BTC for $107.7 million at an average price of $79,475, lifting its treasury from 25,000 BTC to 26,355 BTC, revealed in the MattCole’s latest X disclosure.

Strive acquired 1,355 $BTC for $107.7M at an average cost of $79,475 per bitcoin, bringing total holdings to ₿26,355.

Warrant exercises began last week, generating $21.2M in gross proceeds. Including those proceeds, 57.7% of total capital raised came from SATA.$ASST $SATA pic.twitter.com/UfrI1mRw3f

— Matt Cole (@ColeMacro) September 21, 2026

The purchases were separated by only $195 per Bitcoin, but their balance-sheet effects were not remotely comparable. Strategy increased its holdings by roughly 0.11%, while Strive expanded its Bitcoin position by 5.4%.

That gap shows where the corporate Bitcoin trade is heading. As treasury companies mature, the headline number of coins purchased matters less than the capital structure underneath those purchases.

Strategy Put More Cash Into STRC Than Bitcoin

Strategy’s latest regulatory disclosure makes that transition particularly visible.

Alongside the Bitcoin purchase, the company spent $174 million repurchasing approximately 1.77 million shares of STRC, its Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock. The STRC allocation was about 2.3 times larger than the amount spent on Bitcoin.

More importantly, Strategy did not sell securities through its at-the-market programs during the week. The Bitcoin purchase and STRC repurchases were funded from existing USD Cash.

That changes the economics of the transaction. There was no corresponding common-equity issuance needed to fund the week’s Bitcoin accumulation, while the STRC repurchase reduced an outstanding preferred claim.

Strategy has already established a formal repurchase program for its digital credit securities. Earlier this month, the company increased that authorization to $2 billion, providing considerably more room to manage preferred securities when their market prices create an opportunity to retire them.

Buying STRC below its $100 stated amount can allow Strategy to retire preferred capital for less than its stated value while eliminating the future dividends attached to those shares. The precise benefit depends on the repurchase price and future dividend rates, so the transaction should not be treated as a guaranteed increase in NAV.

It does, however, introduce another lever alongside Bitcoin accumulation and new capital issuance.

The Same Bitcoin Trade Has Very Different Weight

The difference between Strategy and Strive becomes clearer when the latest purchases are compressed into a few balance-sheet metrics.

Strategy’s 846,000 BTC now represent just over 4% of Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million supply. At that scale, even tens of millions of dollars in additional purchases barely change the treasury.

Strive remains on a much steeper accumulation curve. Its latest acquisition increased its Bitcoin holdings by more than one-twentieth in a single week.

This creates different priorities. Strive can still generate substantial treasury growth through new purchases. Strategy increasingly has to optimize an ecosystem of cash, Bitcoin, preferred securities and recurring distributions.

Strategy Still Has $6.09B in Dollar Assets

Strategy’s ability to make those choices is supported by a sizeable liquidity buffer.

Following the latest transactions, it reported $5.04 billion in USD Reserve and $1.05 billion in USD Cash, leaving $6.09 billion across the two pools.

The distinction is important.

The USD Reserve is primarily intended to support preferred-stock dividends and debt interest, while USD Cash gives Strategy greater flexibility for Bitcoin purchases, securities repurchases and other capital allocation.

This means the company does not necessarily face a binary choice between issuing stock and buying Bitcoin. Its liquidity allows management to respond differently depending on where BTC, common shares and preferred securities are trading.

The latest week provides a good example. With no ATM issuance, Strategy simultaneously increased its Bitcoin holdings and retired STRC using cash already on the balance sheet.

That flexibility becomes more valuable as the financing architecture grows more complex.

Strive’s 13% SATA Rate Creates a Higher Hurdle

Strive is building its Bitcoin treasury around a different preferred instrument.

Its SATA shares carry a variable dividend rate that the board has maintained at 13% annually for October. The September 14 Form 8-K specifies daily cash dividends of $0.0516 per share for each business day during the October payment period.

The preferred structure gives Strive another route to capital beyond common equity, but it also introduces a substantial recurring financing cost.

A 13% dividend rate should not be interpreted as requiring Bitcoin itself to rise by exactly 13% every year. The economics depend on the amount of preferred capital outstanding, the BTC acquired with that capital, future issuance prices, other assets and liabilities, and changes to the dividend rate.

But the hurdle is real.

If Bitcoin appreciates strongly over long periods while Strive continues increasing BTC per common share, expensive preferred capital may still produce favorable economics. A prolonged period of weak Bitcoin performance would make the recurring cash obligation more visible because preferred distributions continue regardless of whether BTC appreciates.

Strive’s own SEC disclosures underscore that this is a deliberate balance-sheet design. When SATA’s annual dividend was increased to 13% in April, the company said its then-current balance sheet could support the obligation for approximately 19.6 years under its stated assumptions, which included Bitcoin at $74,750.

That calculation was a company scenario, not a guarantee of future coverage.

Strive Is Shifting More Funding Toward SATA

The latest acquisition also arrived as Strive’s preferred-capital base continued to expand.

CEO Matt Cole said traditional warrant exercises generated $21.2 million in gross proceeds last week and that, including those proceeds, 57.7% of total capital raised came from SATA.

Recent SEC filings show the preferred instrument expanding quickly. SATA shares outstanding increased from 9.07 million to 9.995 million in the week ending September 4 alone.

This is where Strive’s strategy becomes more interesting than its weekly Bitcoin purchase.

A company funding BTC predominantly through common equity has one set of trade-offs, particularly dilution.

Preferred capital changes the equation by introducing a senior security with its own cash distributions and pricing dynamics.

For shareholders, the relevant question becomes whether the additional Bitcoin exposure created per common share compensates for the cost and seniority of the preferred financing used to build it.

The Next Metric Is the Cost of the Bitcoin

Corporate Bitcoin treasuries were initially easy to compare: count the coins, calculate their value and measure the premium or discount at which the company traded against them.

Strategy and Strive show why that framework is becoming incomplete.

Strategy has reached a scale where managing the securities surrounding its Bitcoin treasury can require more capital than an individual BTC purchase. Strive is still expanding its underlying holdings rapidly, but part of that growth is being supported by preferred capital carrying a double-digit dividend rate.

That leaves investors with a more useful set of numbers to watch than the next Bitcoin purchase alone: BTC per common share, preferred capital outstanding, dividend obligations, liquidity reserves and the effective cost of raising each new dollar used for accumulation.

The companies can keep buying the same asset at roughly the same market price. What increasingly separates their strategies is what they have to issue, pay or retire to own the next Bitcoin.

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