Strive Buys About $280m of Bitcoin, but Holdings per Common Share Rise Only 1.72%

Strive, the bitcoin treasury company, acquired roughly $280m of bitcoin between 5 and 9 October, but a parallel expansion in its common share count meant the amount of bitcoin attributable to each common share rose by only about 1.72%.

The purchase came in the same week that Strategy, the largest corporate holder of the asset, put far more money into repurchasing its own preferred shares than into new coins, according to figures compiled by CryptoSlate. The contrast suggests that Strategy's weekly filings, often treated as a barometer of corporate bitcoin demand, capture only one company's choices.

What Strive disclosed

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated 13 October, Strive reported buying 3,311 BTC at an average price of approximately $84,500, a figure that includes fees and expenses. Multiplying that rounded average by the number of coins gives total spending of about $279.8m.

The acquisition took the company's holdings from 29,462 BTC on 2 October to 32,773 BTC on 9 October, an increase of 11.24%. Over the same period, Strive's effective common shares, which it defines as its Class A and Class B common stock combined, grew from 100,938,986 to 110,387,204, a rise of 9.36%.

The increase was driven almost entirely by Class A stock, which rose by 9,461,103 shares, while Class B fell by 12,885. The net addition was 9,448,218 common shares. Strive's reported counts include shares sold up to the cutoff that were due to be issued on the following business day.

Dividing bitcoin holdings by effective common shares produces the per-share measure. On that basis, gross bitcoin per common share improved by roughly 1.72%. That is a measure of treasury exposure rather than net asset value or an investment return, and it does not deduct any claims that rank ahead of common equity.

Strive also increased its cash and cash equivalents by $25.6m during the comparison period. It continued to hold 505,000 shares of Strategy's STRC preferred stock, whose fair value edged up from $50.202m to $50.328m. That position is accounted for separately from both cash and bitcoin.

Why the per-share figure matters

For treasury companies that fund purchases by issuing equity, the headline number of coins bought can overstate the benefit to existing shareholders. If a company raises money by selling new shares and uses the proceeds to buy bitcoin, each share's slice of the treasury grows only to the extent that bitcoin holdings expand faster than the share base.

CryptoSlate has previously documented periods in which Strive's treasury grew while bitcoin per effective common share declined. This latest window moved in the opposite direction, with coin growth outpacing dilution, but the margin was narrow. An 11.24% increase in coins translated into a per-share improvement of well under a fifth of that.

The company also reports a second denominator, an assumed fully diluted share count, which rose from 103,714,772 to 113,116,098. That measure adds options and unvested employee awards to effective common shares, but still leaves out traditional warrants. The 1.72% calculation uses the narrower effective common share count.

Warrants have been a meaningful source of new shares. In a post on 13 October, chief executive Matt Cole said $208m of warrants had been exercised, with about 15.3 million remaining. The filing shows shares underlying traditional warrants falling from 23,249,706 to 15,255,900. It notes that exercising a warrant requires payment of an exercise price, but it does not confirm that the whole decline produced paid exercises. Nor does the SEC ledger attribute the bitcoin purchase to specific funding sources such as warrant proceeds, common share sales or preferred issuance.

The preferred stock question

Beyond common dilution, Strive's capital structure also expanded at the senior level. Its SATA preferred shares rose from 13,498,082 to 14,030,176, a net increase of 532,094 shares, or about 3.94%.

Under the disclosed terms, SATA ranks ahead of both Class A and Class B common stock for dividends and for distributions in a liquidation. It carries a stated amount of $100 per share, and its liquidation preference can be adjusted. Because the gross bitcoin-per-common-share figure does not subtract these senior claims, it flatters the position of common holders to the extent preferred obligations grow.

A separate filing on 13 October kept the SATA annual dividend rate at 13% for periods beginning 1 November. Applying that 13% rate to a $100 stated amount, the 532,094 newly added shares point to annualised dividends of roughly $6.9m, provided neither the share count nor the rate changes.

The same filing set a minimum price of $100 for future sales of SATA by the company, before discounts, commissions, fees and expenses. That condition applies only to new issuance. Strive had earlier announced an optional repurchase programme for SATA, but because the ledger reports only net outstanding shares, it is not possible to tell whether any buybacks took place and were offset by larger sales.

Strategy chose buybacks over bitcoin

Strategy's update, published on 12 October, covered a slightly longer window, 5 to 11 October, which extends two days beyond Strive's reporting period. It showed a much more modest bitcoin purchase: 250 BTC for $21.5m, at an average of $86,194 including fees and expenses. That lifted its holdings to 848,250 BTC.

Unlike Strive, Strategy specified how the purchase was financed. It sold 125,183 MSTR common shares for $21m in net proceeds, which covered $21m of the cost, with the remaining $0.5m drawn from its US dollar cash.

The larger allocation went elsewhere. Strategy repurchased 1,932,145 STRC preferred shares for $192.4m and reported no buybacks of MSTR common stock during the period. It had $354.8m of preferred repurchase authorisation remaining at the end of the window.

In other words, Strategy spent roughly nine times as much retiring preferred shares as it did acquiring bitcoin, while Strive, a much smaller company, bought more than thirteen times as many coins in a shorter period.

Reading corporate demand

The divergence complicates a common shorthand in the market, which treats Strategy's weekly purchases as a proxy for how aggressively listed companies are accumulating bitcoin. In this period, the largest holder directed most of its capital towards managing its preferred stack, while a smaller rival was a substantially larger buyer.

It also highlights how different the quality of accumulation can be. Strategy's disclosure ties a specific equity sale to a specific purchase. Strive's ledger shows the totals but leaves the funding mix unallocated, and the improvement for common shareholders depends on how dilution and senior claims evolve alongside the coin count.

Several items will shape how Strive's next updates read:

• Whether bitcoin holdings continue to grow faster than effective common shares
• The pace of remaining warrant exercises, with about 15.3 million outstanding according to Cole
• Further changes in SATA shares outstanding and the resulting dividend burden
• Whether Strategy keeps prioritising preferred repurchases from its remaining $354.8m authorisation

For investors trying to gauge the benefit of a treasury company's purchases, the per-share change and the size of claims ranking ahead of common stock may prove more informative than the headline number of coins acquired.