TLDR:
- STRC reached $8.5 billion in AUM within nine months, becoming the world’s most liquid preferred stock.
- Saylor proposed shifting STRC dividends from monthly to semi-monthly, pending a shareholder vote closing in June.
- The STRC tokenization ecosystem grew from zero to $200 million, with a projected $1 billion target within weeks.
- BlackRock and VanEck both hold STRC as their third largest position across their respective credit fund portfolios.
Michael Saylor outlined his vision for digital credit at Bitcoin 2026, detailing STRC’s growth and future roadmap. The instrument, built on Bitcoin’s capital returns, has reached $8.5 billion in assets under management within nine months.
Saylor described STRC as engineered credit, designed to convert Bitcoin’s performance into steady monthly cash flows for conservative investors who need yield without volatility.
STRC Growth and Market Performance
STRC has become the largest and most liquid preferred stock in the world. It is 25 times more liquid than the next closest instrument, despite being under a year old. Daily liquidity stands at nearly $400 million, with volatility compressed to 2.9%.
Monthly demand recovered sharply after a February dip during a Bitcoin drawdown. Demand rose from $80 million in February to $1.5 billion in March, then $3.5 billion in April. Annualized, that places STRC on a roughly $38 billion per year run rate before its first birthday.
Retail investors make up 80% of holders, with an estimated three million households currently benefiting from the instrument. BlackRock and VanEck both hold STRC as their third largest position in their respective credit funds.
In a post on X, Saylor noted that Strategy created a $21 billion shelf registration for STRC — 40 times larger than anything previously attempted on a credit instrument globally. That structural move opened the door for demand at a scale the market had not seen before.
The Layer 3 Vision and Semi-Monthly Dividend Proposal
Saylor introduced a three-layer framework during the presentation. Bitcoin serves as Layer 1 digital capital, STRC as Layer 2 digital credit, and Layer 3 represents digital money and yield products built on top of STRC. He named Apyx, Saturn, and Hermetic as early examples building at that layer.
The tokenization layer across the downstream STRC ecosystem grew from zero to around $200 million in the weeks before the conference. Saylor projected it could reach $1 billion in AUM within four to eight weeks, though those remain forward-looking estimates.
On dividends, Saylor announced a proposal to shift from monthly to semi-monthly payments. Shareholders would vote on the change, with polls closing in early June. If approved, the first semi-monthly payment would arrive on July 15.
The rationale behind the change centers on tightening the trading range through higher payment frequency. More dividend cycles per year, each at lower intensity, should theoretically reduce volatility further. No other preferred stock among 921 currently pays on a semi-monthly basis.
