Strive BTC Holdings Overtake MARA, $1B More Lined Up

All news is rigorously fact-checked and reviewed by leading blockchain experts and seasoned industry insiders.

• Strive BTC holdings now rank fourth among public companies.
• The company’s Bitcoin treasury still sits below its total acquisition cost.
• A new preferred-stock program lets Strive keep raising capital without taking on loans.
• The cost of the SATS dividend has become the main test of the strategy.

Strive BTC holdings reached 43,000 coins after the company (Nasdaq: ASST), an asset manager that has turned itself into a Bitcoin treasury firm, bought 6,182 BTC for $511.4 million between October 17 and October 23, moving it into fourth place among publicly traded corporate holders, according to a Form 8-K filed with the SEC on Monday. The same filing disclosed an at-the-market (ATM) program, which allows a company to sell new shares gradually at prevailing market prices, covering up to $1 billion of Strive’s SATS preferred stock. How cheaply Strive can sell those shares will decide how far the buying can go.

$300M Underwater and Still Buying

Strive paid an average of $82,732 per coin including fees, about 5.8% below the $87,785 average across its entire holdings, so the latest tranche pulled the blended cost down. The position as a whole remains underwater. The prospectus filed alongside the 8-K puts cumulative acquisition cost near $3.8 billion against a fair value of roughly $3.5 billion, which implies an unrealized loss of around $300 million based on the rounded figures the company disclosed.

Source: Strive Form 8-K, October 26, 2026.

Effective common shares rose 2.63% to 127.33 million during the same week, so the Bitcoin backing each share grew more slowly than the 16.8% jump in total holdings. Dividing the BTC balance by effective common shares gives 0.3377 BTC per 1,000 shares against 0.2968 a week earlier, an increase of 13.8%. That is a gross figure, separate from the company’s own Bitcoin Yield metric, and it ignores the claims preferred shareholders hold on the same assets.

The size of the purchase is easier to grasp next to new supply. Miners currently receive 3.125 BTC per block and the network produces roughly 144 blocks a day, so 6,182 BTC equals about 13.7 days of fresh issuance. Strive most likely bought from existing holders and exchange order books, so the figure shows the size of the order and says nothing about where the coins came from.

Why SATS Costs Strive 16.67%

On October 20, Strive closed an upsized IPO of 7 million SATS preferred shares at $90 each, raising $630 million in gross proceeds, and that money explains most of the rise in the cash line. Each SATS share carries a fixed $15 annual dividend calculated on a $100 stated amount. Because buyers paid $90, the effective yield at issue comes to 16.67%. Across the 7 million shares, dividends accrue at about $105 million a year, and Strive has set aside a $157.5 million reserve covering the first 18 months, according to the SATS pricing announcement Strive filed with the SEC. Unlike most preferred stock, SATS pays its dividend every business day, starting on November 9.

Preferred shares sit between bonds and common stock. SATS has no maturity date, and its dividends are cumulative, meaning any skipped payment carries forward and must be settled before common shareholders receive a distribution. Strive escapes the refinancing deadlines a bond would impose while accepting a permanent cost that Bitcoin cannot cover by itself, since the asset pays no interest.

The $1 billion ATM is authorized capacity, and Strive will sell into it only as demand and pricing allow. Proceeds can also go to dividends and other corporate needs, so not every dollar raised will end up in Bitcoin. If the company sold the full amount at $90 under the same terms, annual SATS accruals would rise by roughly $166.7 million to about $271.7 million, an illustrative calculation that assumes prices and volumes the company has not committed to. SATS closed at $94.88 on October 23, according to the prospectus, so sales near that level would bring the effective yield on new shares down to about 15.8%.

Source: Strive SATS terms. Both preferred classes pay cumulative dividends.

ASST common shareholders hold the residual claim beneath both preferred classes. A prolonged Bitcoin decline would therefore erode their position first, even though the company carries no conventional debt.

How Semler Helped Strive Pass MARA

Strive BTC holdings stood at 7,627 coins at the end of 2025, which means the balance has grown about 5.6 times this year. A large part of that growth came through M&A. The all-stock acquisition of Semler Scientific, completed on January 16, added roughly 5,048 BTC and took the combined balance to 12,797.9 BTC, good for 11th place among public companies at the time. Strategy, with 848,517 BTC as of its October 19 update, still holds nearly 20 times as much, while MARA Holdings, whose last reported balance was 35,577 BTC at the end of June according to Bitcoin Treasuries data, now trails Strive by about 7,400 coins. MARA produces its Bitcoin through mining, whereas Strive builds its position entirely through capital raising, a smaller-scale version of the Strategy model.

Strive is also a Strategy investor. It holds 505,000 STRC preferred shares worth about $50.2 million, a position opened in March as an income investment. The stake is minor next to 43,000 BTC, yet it ties Strive’s balance sheet to the credit of another treasury issuer, so financial stress at one company could now reach the other through their investment portfolios.

ASST Holders Stand Last in Line

Every future SATS sale adds a senior claim and a fixed cash obligation without increasing the common share count, so BTC-per-share growth can look stronger than the underlying economics if Bitcoin stalls. The current reserve covers payments on the initial issue into the first half of 2028. After that, dividends will have to come from new capital raising, asset sales, investment income or the operating business. Weaker demand for SATS, or a market price well below $90, would push the effective yield on new issuance higher and make each additional bitcoin more expensive to finance. Both preferred markets have already been tested this year. Strive’s SATA fell below $84 in late June before returning to $100 in August, while Strategy’s STRC dropped to a record low below par in June after the company sold Bitcoin for the first time to help fund preferred dividends. Strive’s regular 8-K updates will show the two figures that matter most here: the price at which ATM shares are sold and whether BTC per share keeps rising faster than new dividend commitments.

The asset management arm offers a partial counterweight. Strive reported more than $2.8 billion in assets under management as of June 30, and fee income from that business is the only recurring revenue in the group that depends on neither Bitcoin’s price nor fresh securities sales. Even at a generous 0.5% average fee, $2.8 billion in assets would generate about $14 million a year, a fraction of the $105 million in annual SATS dividends already accruing. The bill grows once SATA is counted. Strive had 14 million of those senior shares outstanding as of October 9, and at the current 13% rate on a $100 stated amount they add roughly $182 million a year, which leaves the strategy dependent on capital markets staying open to its preferred stock.