Strive Accelerates Bitcoin Treasury With $335M Buy, Fuels It With $369M Warrant Cash and a 15% SATS Preferred

Strive has leaned harder into its public-markets-fueled Bitcoin flywheel. After warrant holders injected roughly $369.2 million on October 12–13, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin holder acquired 4,045 BTC between October 12 and 16 at an average of about $82,803 per coin—around $335 million—pushing its stack to 36,818 BTC. At current prices, that position sits just north of $3 billion.

The mechanics matter more than the headline. Strive’s equity base expanded quickly: 273,493,909 warrants were exercised for 13,674,703 new Class A shares, lifting shares outstanding from 101.2 million to 114.8 million in a week—about 13.5% dilution. The remaining traditional warrants expired on October 13; none are left. Strive ended the week with $317.5 million in cash, up $7.2 million.

This is the playbook the company adopted in May 2025 when it chose Bitcoin as its treasury reserve while moving to merge with Asset Entities—an identity shift from its 2022 origins as an anti-ESG asset manager co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy. It later agreed, in September, to acquire Semler Scientific—then holding about 5,000 BTC—in an all-stock deal valued around $1.3 billion. When Semler shareholders approved the deal in January, the combined entity held roughly 12,800 BTC; today’s 36,818 BTC marks nearly a 3x increase since. One week before the latest buy, Strive added 3,311 BTC for about $280 million at roughly $84,500 each. The last 1,223 coins in this week’s tranche, purchased October 14–16, averaged about $81,734.

The next stage of capital formation arrives via preferred equity. On October 15, Strive priced an upsized $630 million offering of 7 million shares of a new 15% Series A Perpetual preferred—ticker SATS—at $90 per share. The dividend is 15% of the $100 stated amount, or $15 annually, implying about a 16.7% yield for buyers at $90. Dividends are cumulative, and Strive plans to park $22.50 per share in a reserve to cover the first 18 months. Settlement is slated for October 20, with regular dividend dates starting November 9.

This strategy effectively securitizes Bitcoin beta through corporate capital structure. The appeal is straightforward for investors seeking BTC exposure in a brokerage account, but the cost of capital is no longer cheap. A 15% coupon—cumulative or not—demands either persistent price appreciation in BTC or high-velocity treasury growth to justify dilution and service claims on cash flows. Psychologically, the trade works when Bitcoin’s rise more than compensates for share issuance; when it chops or slides, equity holders feel the drag, and preferred holders accrue claims that tighten flexibility. Strive’s reserve for 18 months buys time, not immunity.

Index inclusion risk is now a live variable. On October 15, MSCI finalized a rule targeting “non-operating companies,” with firms failing tests for substantial operating assets and a follow-up financial screen set to be removed from MSCI indexes as of the close on November 30. Strategy’s Michael Saylor labeled the proposal discriminatory in a September letter. MSCI will publish the final list of affected companies on November 11. If Strive or peers are caught, passive outflows could raise volatility and the marginal cost of capital—precisely the oxygen this model needs.

Peers show the spectrum of approaches. Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin holder, bought 267 BTC last week for about $22.1 million at roughly $82,900 each, bringing its total to 848,517 BTC. It also spent $193.1 million repurchasing its STRC preferred stock, and lifted its preferred buyback program from $2 billion to $3 billion. Strive itself holds 505,000 shares of that STRC preferred. Elsewhere in the digital asset treasury arena, Tom Lee’s Bitmine added 12,535 ETH (about $30 million) and now holds 6,041,481 ETH—approximately 4.9% of Ethereum’s roughly 122.1 million tokens. Lee has said buying will pause at 5% and pointed to a broader risk-off tone, AI funding concerns, U.S.-Iran tensions, midterm-election jitters, and rising bond yields.

Market backdrop: Bitcoin traded near $81,550 at publication, down about 2.44% on the day, with a 24-hour range of $81,155 to $83,015 and volume around $961.6 million. A Myriad projection put a 55% chance of BTC finishing the week below $82,000.

The throughline is clear: Strive is converting public-market demand into long-dated Bitcoin exposure through dilution and a high-yield preferred. The model can compound quickly when BTC trends favorably, but it becomes a duration bet on Bitcoin’s trajectory and the durability of index eligibility. That is a sophisticated trade—financially engineered, sentiment-sensitive, and now priced with a double-digit cost of capital.