Michael Saylor says Strategy is “converting digital capital Bitcoin into digital credit (STRC) and digital equity (MSTR),” pitching a three‑layer capital stack with BTC as reserve asset, STRC as yield‑focused credit, and MSTR as the levered equity layer.
Summary
- Michael Saylor says Strategy is converting its Bitcoin “digital capital” into digital credit via STRC and digital equity via MSTR.
- STRC, a Bitcoin-backed perpetual preferred stock, has grown into an $8.5 billion “digital credit” product in under a year.
- The framework cements Strategy’s model: Bitcoin as reserve asset, STRC as yield-focused credit layer, and MSTR as leveraged equity tied to BTC upside.
Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy, said on X that the firm is “converting digital capital Bitcoin into digital credit (STRC) and digital equity (MSTR),” underscoring what he called a Bitcoin-centric capital market architecture. The post reiterates a theme Saylor has been pushing since his Bitcoin 2026 keynote, where he framed Bitcoin as “engineered capital,” STRC as a digital credit instrument built on that capital, and MSTR as the equity layer that absorbs the residual upside and volatility.
Bitcoin as capital, STRC as credit, MSTR as equity
At the Bitcoin 2026 conference, Saylor detailed Strategy’s three-layer model, with Bitcoin as layer-one digital capital, STRC as layer-two digital credit, and a range of yield and money products at layer three. “Digital credit is a killer application of digital capital. Every dollar that flows into digital credit will flow into digital capital,” he said, describing STRC as the credit layer built directly on top of Strategy’s BTC reserves.
STRC (ticker STRC), nicknamed “Stretch,” is Strategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred stock backed by the company’s Bitcoin holdings and designed to trade near a $100 par value, according to the digital credit dashboard. Strategy manages STRC’s price stability by adjusting its monthly dividend rate and using an at-the-market (ATM) issuance program to sell new shares when they trade at or above $100, raising cash to buy more BTC and expand its reserve. In an April update, Saylor said STRC had reached $8.5 billion in assets under management in roughly nine months, making it “the world’s largest preferred stock” and targeting what he described as a $3.5 trillion private credit market.
In that same presentation, Saylor argued traditional private credit is “illiquid, opaque, discrete, and burdened with fees,” while “digital credit” such as STRC is “liquid, transparent, homogeneous, scalable, accessible, and carries no fee,” positioning the product as a structural fix to what he sees as misaligned incentives in legacy markets. KuCoin’s summary of the Bitcoin 2026 talk noted that STRC’s design channels Bitcoin’s capital returns into monthly income, with an 11% yield based on BTC’s 38% annualized return and a 5:1 collateral ratio intended to protect principal even if Bitcoin falls by 80%.
On the equity side, MSTR — Strategy’s common stock — functions as what Saylor calls “digital equity,” a leveraged claim on the firm’s expanding BTC treasury that captures the excess return from Bitcoin after servicing STRC’s coupon. A BitcoinTreasuries profile notes that Strategy now holds more than 800,000 BTC, and a recent digital credit overview frames MSTR as the equity layer sitting above STRC and other Bitcoin-backed preferreds. Yahoo Finance, in a separate report, estimated that roughly 85% of a recent $2.5 billion BTC purchase by Strategy was funded through STRC issuance, illustrating how the preferred stock has become the engine for scaling the company’s Bitcoin balance sheet.
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