That stack makes Strive the fourth-largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin. The company has said it wants to climb to second place.
The safekeeping side is handled by institutional custodians. Think of them as the bank vault rather than the shoebox under the bed: specialized firms whose whole job is securing large digital-asset positions for clients who cannot afford to lose a private key.
The more interesting piece is how Strive funds itself. It carries no traditional debt.
Instead, the company raises money through preferred stock. It has two flavors on offer: SATA, which carries a variable dividend of roughly 13%, and SATS, which pays a fixed 15%.
Those dividends are paid daily, an unusual cadence for a corporate security. Most preferred shareholders wait for a quarterly check.
Here is where the reserve comes in. Strive keeps 18 months of cash and marketable securities on hand to cover those dividend obligations.
Put plainly, the company has pre-funded a year and a half of payouts. If Bitcoin slumps, it can keep the dividends flowing without dipping into the coins themselves.
CEO Matt Cole has framed the 18-month reserve as a conservative buffer. In his telling, it lets Strive honor its dividend commitments while leaving its core Bitcoin position untouched for long-term growth.
From Semler Scientific to top-five holder
Strive’s treasury strategy only began in 2025. Its initial Bitcoin came through the acquisition of Semler Scientific, a deal that involved a reverse merger.
Semler had already built a Bitcoin position of its own before the combination. Folding that company in gave Strive a running start rather than building a treasury from zero.
Since then, the company has kept buying. Its average acquisition cost sits between $87,000 and $88,000 per $BTC.
Run the arithmetic on those figures and something stands out. At an average cost of $87,000 to $88,000, 43,153 $BTC would have cost well over $3.7 billion, yet the position is valued at approximately $3 billion.
In other words, the holdings appear to be worth less than Strive paid for them. That is precisely the scenario the cash reserve was designed for.
A company underwater on its main asset, with debt payments looming, might be pushed to sell at the worst possible moment. Strive has no debt, and its dividend bill is covered for 18 months.
What this means for investors and the treasury trade
For preferred holders, the pitch is yield. A fixed 15% on SATS and a variable figure near 13% on SATA sit well above what conventional fixed-income products typically offer, and the 18-month buffer is meant to make those payments feel less like a bet on next quarter’s Bitcoin price.
The daily dividend structure also deserves attention. It creates a constant, predictable outflow, which is exactly why a dedicated cash pile matters so much to the model.
For common shareholders in ASST, the debt-free approach removes one classic risk: there is no lender who can demand repayment or seize collateral. Preferred equity sits ahead of common stock in the payment line, however, so those dividend commitments are a real claim on the company.
Strive’s stated goal of becoming the second-largest public Bitcoin holder will require substantial additional purchases. How it funds those buys, and whether the 18-month reserve stays intact while it does, will be the clearest signal of whether the conservative framing holds up in practice.
cryptobriefing.com
