Bitcoin treasury firm Strive buys Strategy instead of bitcoin

A bitcoin (BTC) treasury company just bought another BTC treasury company’s dividend-paying shares after selling its own dividend-paying shares. If that sounds circular, that’s not accidental.

The CEO of Nasdaq-listed buyer Strive, co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy and an ex-president of beer company Anheuser-Busch, announced its $50 million cash purchase of Strategy’s STRC today.

Michael Saylor thanked him for the purchase, retweeting Strategy’s post in gratitude.

In the company’s own press release about buying another company’s dividend-paying shares, Ramaswamy admitted, “Instead of holding idle cash earning low yields in money market funds, we believe it makes sense to allocate a portion of those reserves to instruments like STRC.”

In January, Strive raised roughly $118 million through selling 1,320,000 shares of its own dividend-paying SATA.

SATA currently pays 12.75% annualized dividends, a far higher yield than even junk bonds. 

Strive was able to raise money by selling SATA not only because of its generous dividend rate, but also because it sold shares at $90 apiece, $10 below its $100 par value. 

This month, Strive then bought $50 million worth of STRC at full par value, which pays 11.5% annualized dividends.

Moreover, Strive hiked SATA dividends another 25 basis points today from 12.5% yesterday to encourage investors to bid up for shares that have fallen as low as $81 last month or 19% below par. 

Even assuming the STRC that Strive purchased maintains its $100 quasi-peg — which is a huge assumption that hasn’t always held true — Strive is now earning a 125 basis point negative carry.

Bitcoin treasury companies paying dividends to each other

Both companies framed the deal as a triumph for so-called “digital credit,” a euphemism for elaborately complex fiat payout schemes by companies that own BTC.

Strategy CEO Phong Le said the purchase proves “institutions continue integrating STRC into their treasury strategies.” Cole called STRC and SATA “core building blocks for institutional capital.”

Read more: Strategy is paying credit card rates to keep STRC at $100

Strive now counts its STRC holdings as part of its SATA “dividend reserve” which could last for 18 months provided everything works out and the price of BTC doesn’t decline too much.

The company’s STRC shares that it purchased from Strategy for $100 apiece, just for historical reference, were trading at $93.10 as recently as February and $90.52 as recently as November.

Its annual SATA dividend obligation exceeds $54 million.

STRC itself has required seven consecutive dividend hikes just to trade near par. Strive counts on the stability of an instrument whose issuer keeps paying more to prevent it from breaking too far below its $100 par.

ASST, the common stock of Strive, is down 37% year-to-date. Strategy’s common stock MSTR is down 8%.

One BTC treasury company’s double-digit dividends helped to fund another BTC treasury company’s double-digit dividends. With both CEOs boasting about the deal, the circularity is a feature, not a bug.

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