Buy 3,000 BTC with zero debt and refinance 15% high-interest preferred shares

According to Woofun AI, Strive (ASST.US) submitted an 8-K document to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on October 13, disclosing that it spent approximately $280 million to purchase 3,311 bitcoins between October 5 and 9. This move raised its total holdings to 32,773, marking the latest development of the company's Bitcoin treasury model through high-interest preferred stock financing in the context of zero debt.

Strive (ASST.US) currently ranks fifth in the list of listed companies' Bitcoin holdings, with the top four being Strategy (MSTR.US) (848,250), Metaplanet (44,000), Twenty One Capital (XXI.US) (43,514), and MARA (MARA.US) (35,577).

Notably, the pace of increase of the top four giants almost stagnated during the same period: Strategy (MSTR.US) increased slightly from 840,447 on August 16 to 848,250 on October 11, an increase of less than 1%; Metaplanet bought back 11,000 units after first selling 10,000 units in the third quarter, a net increase of only 1,000 units; Twenty One Capital (XXI.US) has not increased since July 2025 Further increase; MARA (MARA.US)'s holdings have also remained basically flat since May. In contrast, Strive (ASST.US) is significantly ahead in the pace of expansion, reflecting huge differences in capital allocation strategies among different institutions.

Strive was co-founded by American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in Dallas in 2022. CEO Matt Cole previously managed fixed income assets for 15 years at CalPERS, the nation's largest public pension fund. The company initially started with asset management and is famous for opposing the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) investment trend. After transforming the Bitcoin treasury, its asset management business remained under its subsidiary Strive (ASST.US) Asset Management, which currently manages about $3 billion. In May 2025, Strive (ASST.US) announced a merger listing with Nasdaq's small market capitalization company Asset Entities (ASST.US), under the stock code ASST. After the merger was completed on September 12, Strive (ASST.US) officially transformed into a Bitcoin treasury company and set Bitcoin as the company's 'threshold yield', stipulating that any investment must outperform Bitcoin to be successful. This strategic position provided internal logical support for its subsequent aggressive increase in holdings.

Just 10 days after the merger with Asset Entities was completed, on September 22, 2025, Strive (ASST.US) purchased 5816 bitcoins in a single transaction and announced the acquisition of Semler Scientific in exchange. Semler, originally a medical company specializing in vascular disease testing equipment, began hoarding bitcoins in May 2024, and is the second publicly traded company in the US to do so. The acquisition was completed in January 2026, and Strive (ASST.US) incorporated approximately 5048 bitcoins and said it was the first merger and acquisition between Bitcoin treasury listed companies. Since then, Strive (ASST.US)'s coin buying pace has been fast and slow until late August: it gained 12,527 units in 8 weeks from August 14 to October 9, and its holdings increased by about 62%, showing its determination to accelerate the accumulation of bottom positions after optimizing the capital structure.

The core game of Bitcoin treasury companies is to finance the capital market to buy coins, and issuing additional common shares dilutes the rights of old shareholders, so sustainable preferred stocks have become a new favorite. In January 2025, Strategy (MSTR.US) found another path by launching STRK (STRK.US), its first perpetual preferred stock. Perpetual preferred shares have no maturity date, and the company does not need to repay the principal amount; they only need to pay dividends on a regular basis, and the order of payment and settlement takes precedence over ordinary shares. In July 2025, Strategy (MSTR.US) also launched STRC (STRC.US), which adjusts the dividend rate on a monthly basis, with the aim of stabilizing the price around $100. Michael Saylor called it 'digital credit'. In November 2025, Strive (ASST.US) launched SATA (SATA.US), which has almost the same mechanism, but made two key changes: one is that it does not take debt and uses SATA to replace Semler's remaining convertible bonds. Currently, there is zero debt on its books, while Strategy (MSTR.US) is still burdened with about $6.7 billion in convertible debt; the other is to pay dividends every business day from June 2026.

This change in turn affected Strategy (MSTR.US), which has proposed changing all of its preferred shares to daily interest and is scheduled to vote on October 28. Following up on this style of play, Japan's Metaplanet announced the targeted issuance of MERCURY with an annual interest rate of 4.9% to overseas institutions, but the public listing plan was blocked by Japan Exchange rules; the UK's The Smarter Web Company completed the issuance of MORE preferred shares on October 12, with an initial annual interest of 12%, weekly dividends, and raised £10 million. It is expected to be sold at London Securities on October 14 The exchange started trading, but on a much smaller scale than Strive (ASST.US).

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, Strive recently revealed an additional SATA (SATA.US) repurchase amount of 500 million US dollars on October 5, completed the exercise of about 208 million US dollars of warrants, and submitted a prospectus to issue a second sustainable preferred stock, SATS, with a fixed annual interest rate of 15% and plans to raise about 500 million US dollars. SATA (SATA.US)'s “no less than $100 offering” was officially included in the terms of a verbal promise, and the definition of a “business day” no longer excludes weekends, reserving space for future weekend dividends.

The immediate purpose of launching SATS was to re-leverage. Previously, common stock financing brought about by the exercise of warrants lowered the amplification ratio. CEO Cole stated that the goal was to keep this ratio above 60% when Bitcoin falls below $100,000. There is also a reason for switching to a fixed interest rate: since SATA (SATA.US) and STRC (STRC.US) went public, only 24% and 16% of trading days, respectively, stood at $100, and floating interest rates have not stabilized the price.

As of October 9, Strive (ASST.US) had about US$310 million in cash, after deducting about US$180 million of one-year dividend reserves reserved for SATA (SATA.US), which can be freely used; if SATS raised the full amount of US$500 million, after deducting an 18-month dividend reserve of about US$110 million, there would be approximately US$390 million left. Together, the two are about 500 million US dollars, and about 6000 bitcoins can be purchased at the current currency price, and the magnification ratio will rise to about 60%. Cole said it will release a supplementary 8-K before the US stock market opens on October 14 to disclose the final exercise of rights.

Strategy (MSTR.US) is currently operating in reverse. It only bought 250 bitcoins last week, but spent about $192 million to buy back STRC (STRC.US), and has about $4.9 billion in reserves dedicated to interest payments. Its holdings are already about 26 times larger than Strive (ASST.US). As the largest Bitcoin treasury company, Strategy (MSTR.US) is currently most concerned about maintaining the credit of Michael Saylor's 'digital credit'. The cost of increasing leverage is high capital costs. Together, Strive (ASST.US)'s two preferred shares will have an annual dividend of more than $250 million, close to 10% of the current market value of their Bitcoin holdings.

As of October 9, the total cost of Bitcoin was about 2.9 billion US dollars, fair value was about 2.7 billion US dollars, and the book still had a loss of about 200 million US dollars. Strive (ASST.US) estimates are based on Bitcoin's 50% annualized increase. After deducting 15% of the cost, the difference goes to common shareholders. Cole has stated that Strive (ASST.US) has a chance to become the second-largest listed company Bitcoin holder at the end of the year. Whether it can catch up depends on whether SATA (SATA.US) can continue to issue above face value and whether SATS can raise full capital; and whether this leveraged model can ultimately make money for common shareholders depends on whether Bitcoin's long-term increase can outperform the 13 to 15% preferred stock costs.