According to Woofun AI, Strive (ASST.US) submitted an 8-K filing to the SEC on October 13, disclosing that it purchased 3,311 bitcoins for approximately $280 million between October 5 and 9, at an average price of $84,500, increasing its total holdings to 32,773.
The company, founded by Vivek Ramaswamy in Dallas in 2022 and headed by Matt Cole, is reshaping its balance sheet through aggressive capital operations, marking its largest single fundraising operation to date. This purchase not only refreshed the company's own acquisition record, but also highlighted its firm determination to allocate Bitcoin assets in the current market environment, in an attempt to rapidly expand the scale of assets under the premise of zero debt through a highly leveraged preferred stock financing model.
Strive (ASST.US) currently ranks fifth in the ranking of publicly listed Bitcoin holding companies, a position that makes it a leader in the second tier of the industry. The top four giants are Strategy (MSTR.US), which holds 848,250 bitcoins, Metaplanet with 44,000, Twenty One Capital (XXI.US), which holds 43,514, and MARA (MARA.US), which holds 35,577. Although Strive (ASST.US)'s holdings are smaller than those of leading companies, its growth momentum far exceeds that of its peers. Looking back at its accumulation history, the company purchased 5,816 bitcoins in one go in September 2025, then absorbed approximately 5,048 bitcoins after completing the merger with Semler Scientific in January 2026.
This tiered asset accumulation strategy quickly narrowed the gap with leading companies in a short period of time and laid a solid asset foundation for subsequent leveraged operations.
At the same time, Strive (ASST.US)'s actions in the capital market are just as intense and complex. On the same day, the company announced that the approximately $208 million worth of warrants had been fully exercised, bringing a fresh injection of financing to common shareholders. More importantly, the company made important revisions to the terms of the first series of perpetual preferred stock SATA (SATA.US), clearly stipulating that the stock issuance price must not be less than $100 per share, and adjusted the definition of a “working day” to flexibly arrange weekend dividend payments under future conditions.
In addition, the company also submitted a prospectus for its second series of perpetual preferred shares, SATS. The series of shares has a fixed annual dividend rate of up to 15% and is expected to raise approximately $500 million in capital. This series of initiatives shows that Strive (ASST.US) is optimizing its capital structure through sophisticated financial instrument design to support larger Bitcoin purchase plans.
Strive's (ASST.US) transformation journey has been dramatic. The company was first co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy in 2022 and is headquartered in Dallas. Its CEO Matt Cole spent 15 years at CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, managing fixed income assets. The company started in the asset management business and has built a reputation by opposing mainstream ESG investment ideas. Following the transformation into a Bitcoin asset management company, its original asset management business is still managed by its subsidiary Strive (ASST.US) Asset Management, which currently manages around $3 billion in assets.
In May 2025, Strive (ASST.US) announced a merger with Nasdaq-listed small and medium-sized company Asset Entities (ASST.US) to go public, and the stock code remains ASST. Following the completion of the merger on September 12, 2025, Strive (ASST.US) officially became a Bitcoin asset management company and set Bitcoin's return as the company's official capital cost benchmark, requiring that all investment projects return higher than Bitcoin's return to be considered successful.
Ten days after the merger with Asset Entities, on September 22, 2025, Strive (ASST.US) purchased 5,816 bitcoins in one go and announced that it would acquire Semler Scientific as a share swap. Originally a medical company focused on diagnostic devices for vascular diseases, Semler began raising Bitcoin in May 2024, becoming the second publicly traded company in the US to adopt this strategy. The acquisition was completed in January 2026, adding approximately 5,048 bitcoins to Strive (ASST.US)'s balance sheet, which the company says is the first merger and acquisition of a Bitcoin asset management company between publicly traded companies to date.
Judging from the growth rate of positions, Strive (ASST.US)'s performance was particularly outstanding. Over the 8-week period from August 14 to October 9, the company added another 12,527 bitcoins, and its overall holdings increased by about 62%. In contrast, the position growth of the top four Bitcoin holding companies has almost stagnated: Strategy (MSTR.US) holdings only increased from 840,447 bitcoins on August 16 to 848,250 bitcoins on October 11, an increase of less than 1%; Metaplanet sold 10,000 bitcoins in the third quarter and then bought back 11,000, with a net increase of only 1,000 bitcoins; Twenty One Capital (XXI.US) has not increased its holdings since July 2025; while MARA (MARA.US)'s holdings have remained largely unchanged since May.
This stark contrast highlights Strive (ASST.US)'s more aggressive expansion strategy in the current market environment, and also reflects the differentiated choices of different companies in Bitcoin asset allocation.
Strive (ASST.US)'s perpetual preferred stock financing model is at the core of its zero-debt operation. In January 2025, Strategy (MSTR.US) launched its first series of perpetual preferred shares STRK (STRK.US), creating an alternative funding path. Perpetual preferred shares have no maturity date, which means the issuer is not required to repay the principal amount and only has to pay dividends as planned. Perpetual preferred shares are also superior to common shares in terms of dividend distribution and asset allocation in bankruptcy and liquidation. For issuers, the function of this financial instrument is like a loan that does not require principal repayment and only pays interest: yield-focused investors can get higher returns, while companies can obtain funds to buy bitcoins.
As long as the long-term price of Bitcoin rises more than the cost of the preferred stock dividend, all excess earnings will go to common shareholders. In July 2025, Strategy (MSTR.US) also launched STRC (STRC.US), a perpetual preferred stock whose dividend rate is adjusted every month. The design aims to stabilize the share price around $100. Michael Saylor called this structure 'digital credit'.
Strive (ASST.US) launched SATA (SATA.US) in November 2025, with a structural design very similar to Strategy's (MSTR.US) product, but with two key changes: First, it completely avoided bearing interest-bearing debt, and instead used SATA (SATA.US) to refinance convertible notes inherited from the Semler Scientific acquisition, leaving the company without any debt on its balance sheet. By contrast, Strategy (MSTR.US) still has approximately $6.7 billion in outstanding convertible notes. Second, starting in June 2026, the company made it mandatory to pay dividends every week.
This change has already backfired on Strategy (MSTR.US): the larger company proposed changing all of its preferred shares to daily interest, and the relevant shareholder vote is scheduled for October 28. Strive (ASST.US) is not alone in this mode of operation. The Japan-listed company Metaplanet announced plans to privately issue convertible preferred shares called MERCURY to overseas institutional investors in November 2025. The stock has an annual dividend rate of 4.9%, but due to Japan Exchange regulations, its public listing plan has not been realized. The Smarter Web Company, headquartered in the UK, completed the issuance of its preferred stock series MORE on October 12. The stock had an initial annual dividend rate of 12% and weekly dividends. The offering raised a total of £10 million. The shares are expected to start trading on the London Stock Exchange on October 14 — but the amount of capital raised is far smaller than Strive (ASST.US).
Strive measures its level of leverage using a so-called 'amplification ratio', which is the total value of its preferred equity and debt divided by the total market value of its Bitcoin holdings. The higher the ratio, the greater the increase in the price of common stock when the price of Bitcoin rises; when the price of Bitcoin falls, the share price also falls more sharply. The share price trend of ASST (ASST.US) is a typical example: considering the 1:20 reverse stock split in February this year, the price of the stock was $169.80 on the day of merger with Asset Entities, fell to $7.16 on February 24, and did not rise back to $27.59 until October 13.
Its price volatility is far higher than that of Bitcoin itself. Over the past week, Strive (ASST.US) has taken a series of steps to adjust its capital structure. On October 5, the company first announced that SATA (SATA.US) will authorize an additional $500 million share repurchase to support the share price during times of market fluctuations. In the latest disclosure, about $208 million worth of warrants have been exercised. These warrants give holders the right to purchase newly issued common shares at a pre-agreed exercise price, thus bringing a new round of common share financing to the company. In addition to this, the company also officially stipulated in the terms of SATA (SATA.US) that the share issue price must not be less than $100 per share (previously this was only a verbal promise) to boost holders' confidence.
At the same time, the definition of a “working day” has also been revised to no longer exclude weekend hours, so that dividends can be paid flexibly on weekends as soon as regulatory and settlement conditions permit. The short-term dividend payment plan remains unchanged. The company also submitted a prospectus for its second series of perpetual preferred shares, SATS, which has a lower priority than SATA (SATA.US) in liquidation, has a fixed annual dividend rate of 15%, and is expected to raise around $500 million. The immediate purpose of launching SATS was to further increase the company's leverage level. Common shares recently raised through the exercise of warrants have reduced the magnification ratio, and Kohl said on the X platform that the company aims to maintain this ratio above 60% when the price of Bitcoin falls below $100,000. The practice of adopting a fixed dividend rate is also based on an obvious observation: since the launch of SATA (SATA.US) and STRC (STRC.US), the two stocks were only 24% and 16%, respectively, in trading days above their $100 face value, which indicates that the floating interest rate structure is unable to stabilize their market prices.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, Strive (ASST.US) had about $310 million in cash on its balance sheet as of October 9. After deducting the $1.8 billion set aside for SATA (SATA.US) as a one-year dividend reserve, the company also has around $1.3 billion in funds available.
If SATS can raise the intended $500 million capital, after deducting the $110 million set aside as an 18-month dividend reserve, there will also be around $3.9 billion available to buy Bitcoin. The sum of these two funds is about $500 million, which is enough to buy about 6,000 bitcoins at current market prices, so the amplification ratio will reach about 60%.
Furthermore, the final data on the exercise of warrants has not been fully calculated, and the funds obtained from these exercises may also bring additional demand for Bitcoin purchases.
In contrast, Strategy (MSTR.US)'s current approach is the exact opposite. Last week, it bought just 250 bitcoins while spending around $1.92 billion to buy back STRC (STRC.US) shares. The company also has a dedicated cash reserve of approximately $4.9 billion dedicated to paying dividends. The total amount of Bitcoin it holds is already about 26 times that of Strive (ASST.US). As the world's largest Bitcoin asset manager, Strategy (MSTR.US)'s top priority right now is to maintain the credibility of the 'digital credit' structure advocated by Michael Saylor. Raising the level of leverage means bearing higher capital costs. The total annual dividend payments from its two series of preferred shares will exceed $250 million, which is almost 10% of the current market value of Bitcoin held by Strive (ASST.US).
As of October 9, the total cost of Bitcoin held by Strive was around $2.9 billion, and the fair market value of these bitcoins was around $2.7 billion, so the company had an unrealized book loss of approximately $200 million. Strive (ASST.US)'s internal model uses a 50% Bitcoin annual price increase as the benchmark scenario. In this case, the difference between Bitcoin's return and 15% annual cost of preferred shares will go to common shareholders. Cole said that Strive (ASST.US) is expected to become the second-largest enterprise Bitcoin holder by the end of the year, and whether it can achieve this goal depends on two factors: one is whether SATA (SATA.US) can continue to issue shares at a price higher than face value, and the other is whether SATS's financing can be successfully completed.
However, whether this leverage model can actually generate benefits for common shareholders ultimately depends on whether the long-term price increase of Bitcoin can exceed the annual cost of preferred shares by 13% to 15%.
Looking ahead, Strive (ASST.US)'s strategic success or failure will be highly dependent on the execution of its capital market and the long-term performance of the Bitcoin price. Cole said that the company will release a supplementary 8-K format document before the opening of the US stock market on October 14, disclosing the final exercise results. As of the time of reporting, these results had not been announced. If the SATS series is successfully launched, Strive (ASST.US) is expected to become the second-largest Bitcoin holder in the industry by the end of the year, surpassing rivals such as Metaplanet.
However, a fixed dividend rate of up to 15% is also putting enormous financial pressure on it, and any short-term correction in Bitcoin's price could increase its book losses, which in turn affects the market performance of SATA (SATA.US) and SATS. This model of high leverage, high return, and high risk is not only the core characteristic that distinguishes Strive (ASST.US) from traditional giants such as Strategy (MSTR.US), but also the biggest source of uncertainty it faces in the future.