STRC and SATA are the two most traded and most scrutinized Bitcoin-backed preferred stocks on the market, and in July 2026 they tell opposite stories. STRC, Strategy's "Stretch" preferred, lost the $100 par that defines its design in June, bottomed at $71.25 and closed July at $89.46 — still 10% below. SATA, Strive's preferred, trades near par and just became the first listed security in U.S. history to pay a cash dividend every business day. This comparison puts the two side by side with data verified against primary sources (SEC, CoinDesk) as of August 5, 2026. We refresh it monthly; the STRC and SATA profiles show live prices and next payments. New to the instrument? Start with Bitcoin preferred stocks explained.
STRC vs SATA in one sentence
SATA pays more (13% a year, daily, ~13.9% effective) from a small but debt-free balance sheet; STRC pays 12% semi-monthly from a balance sheet seventy times larger in Bitcoin, but June proved that its promise to trade at par is not automatic. The real choice isn't "which yields more" — it's which mix of size, collateral and dividend governance matches the risk you're willing to hold.
What is STRC (Stretch)?
STRC is Strategy's (NASDAQ: MSTR) variable-rate perpetual preferredPerpetual PreferredFixed-income instrument with no maturity that pays a fixed dividend, ranking ahead of common shareholders.View term →, engineered with one explicit goal: always trade near its $100 par, adjusting the dividend monthly to get there. It went public on July 29, 2025, raising $2.521 billion — the largest perpetual preferred IPO in the U.S. since 2009 — and became the funding engine behind Strategy's Bitcoin purchases; the instrument's full story is in STRC and the rise of Digital Credit. It debuted paying 9% a year; after seven hikes it reached 11.5%, and on June 29, 2026 it was raised to 12%. Since July it pays twice a month (on the 15th and the last day); next up, $0.50 per share on July 31.
What is SATA?
SATA is the variable-rate perpetual preferred of Strive (NASDAQ: ASST), the Bitcoin-focused asset manager. It IPO'd in November 2025 at $80 against a $100 par (2 million shares) and has moved its dividend in only one direction since: 12% → 12.25% → 12.50% → 12.75% → 13%, four hikes through April 2026. On June 16, 2026 it crossed a historic line: it became the first U.S.-listed security to pay a cash dividend every business day — roughly 250 payments a year, $0.0493 per share per day in July. As of July 10 there are 7.83 million shares outstanding (~$783M in par value), trading close to par; the live price is on its profile.
The table: STRC vs SATA as of August 5, 2026
Issuer — STRC: Strategy Inc (MSTR), the world's largest Bitcoin treasury companyCorporate TreasuryA company that adopts Bitcoin as a primary or significant balance-sheet asset.View term → · SATA: Strive Inc (ASST), an asset manager with a Bitcoin treasury.
Par value — $100 per share in both cases.
Annual dividend — STRC: 12% (raised from 11.5% on Jun 29, 2026) · SATA: 13% (fourth hike, since April 2026).
Payment frequency — STRC: semi-monthly, on the 15th and the last day of each month (previously monthly) · SATA: daily, every business day since Jun 16, 2026 (~250 payments/year).
Compounded effective yield on par — STRC: ~12.7% · SATA: ~13.9% (daily frequency boosts compounding).
Market price — STRC: $89.46 at the July 31 close, still 10% below par after the June 26 low of $71.25 · SATA: near par. Live prices for both are on their STRC and SATA profiles.
Issue size — STRC: $2.521B raised in the July 2025 IPO; last public share count, 50.25M (SEC, Mar 2026) · SATA: 7.83M shares, ~$783M par (SEC, Jul 10, 2026).
Issuer backing — STRC: 840,447 BTC and a dollar reserve of around $4 billion; above the preferreds sit more than $8 billion in convertible debtConvertible DebtA bond that can be converted into common shares under certain conditions.View term → · SATA: 20,000 BTC (~1.6x the issued par in Bitcoin collateral), $154M in cash and zero convertible debt.
Dividend coverage — STRC: the reserve covers some 27 months of the ~$1.76 billion Strategy pays annually in preferred dividends plus interest, but it is replenished by selling bitcoin and its own shares, not with operating profit · SATA: the dividend (~$102M/year) is not covered by operating cash flow and depends on continuous share issuance (ATM).
Tax treatment (U.S.) — SATA has distributed its dividends as return of capital, having no accumulated earnings and profits; treatment for non-U.S. investors depends on individual circumstances — ask an advisor.
How STRC lost its par: the June timeline
STRC's central promise — always trade pinned to $100 — broke in six weeks. The sequence, reconstructed by CoinDesk and Strategy's own filings:
- May 14: STRC trades at $100, as on almost every day since its debut. - May: Strategy spends part of its reserve buying back convertible debt; the dollar reserve falls to $871M. - June 1: Strategy sells 32 BTC. Symbolic in size, but its first sale since 2022 — and the market reads it as a cash-strain signal. - June 5: Bitcoin loses $60,000, roughly half its all-time highATHAll-Time High: the highest price an asset has ever reached.View term →. - June 18: STRC closes at $89, a record low at that point. - June 26: 52-week low of $71.25 — 29% below par on an instrument designed not to move. - June 29: Strategy responds with its defense framework (next section). STRC rebounds and closes July at $89.46.
The response: the June 29 framework
On June 29 Strategy unveiled its Digital Credit Capital Framework, a package of commitments to restore confidence: STRC's dividend raised to 12%, an obligation to keep a dollar reserve covering at least 12 months of preferred obligations, authorization to repurchase up to $1B of preferreds and up to $1B of MSTR stock, and a Bitcoin Monetization Program of up to $1.25B to fund dividends without leaning solely on the ATM. Under that umbrella it sold 3,588 BTC for ~$216M in the first week of July — leaving the reserve at $2.55 billion — and issued a warning investors should note: it will not raise the rate merely because the price trades below par.
August 1 and 3: two moves in forty-eight hours. Strategy authorized bitcoin sales of up to $5 billion, and its 8-K of August 3 disclosed the year's third sale: 1,638 BTC for $104.7 million, with $52.4 million going directly to preferred dividend payments and $52.3 million to buying back STRC. Alongside it, it placed 3.01 million MSTR shares for $290.6 million net. The dollar reserve thus climbs to around $4 billion, and ~$893.8 million is left of the preferred buyback program. That same August 1 Saylor confirmed that STRC's rate stays at 12% for August: the highest since it went public. The program's details and first effects are on the STRC profile.
SATA: four hikes and the first daily dividend in history
While STRC fought fires, Strive executed the opposite playbook: hike the dividend preemptively and raise the frequency to the market's physical limit. The daily dividend is not just marketing — it changes the math (daily compounding lifts the effective yield to ~13.9%) and changes the instrument's psychology: holders see cash arriving every business day. The risk is the same as STRC's, minus the safety net of a giant balance sheet: SATA's ~$102M annual dividend doesn't come from Strive's asset-management business — it comes from issuing more shares. In SATA's favor: 20,000 BTC of collateral (~1.6x the issued par), $154M in cash and a clean capital structureCapital StructureThe mix of debt, preferred stock and common equity that funds a company.View term → with no convertible debt above the preferred. How to buy the issuer's stock: how to buy Strive (ASST) shares.
The irony: Strive owns STRC
In March 2026, Strive bought 500,000 shares of STRC (~$50M, at par) as a treasury investment to support the digital credit category. As of July 10 that position is worth ~$44M: roughly $6M of unrealized loss (−12%). It's a reminder that in this category the issuers are also each other's investors — and that not even the sector's best-informed buyer saw the par break coming.
What they share: the dividend doesn't come from the business
This is the point no investor should lose sight of. Neither Strategy nor Strive generates enough operating profit to pay its preferred dividends: both rely on issuing shares (ATM), on their reserves and — in Strategy's case since July — on selling Bitcoin. The model works as long as the market keeps funding the issuer and the collateral holds; June 2026, with Bitcoin at half its all-time high, was the first real stress test — and the difference between the two instruments showed up less in the coupon than in how the price behaved. You can stress any treasury company's balance sheet against BTC drawdowns in the stress test.
Which fits which profile?
There is no universal answer, and this is not a recommendation. STRC at $89.46 offers more upside if Strategy restores the par (~12% potential appreciation on top of the coupon), in exchange for living with the volatilityVolatilityThe magnitude of the swings in Bitcoin's price over a given period.View term → June demonstrated and with $8 billion of convertibles ahead of it in the capital stack. SATA near par is the bet on the small, clean issuer: more current yield, proportionally larger collateral and zero debt, in exchange for a far less liquid issue and a dividend entirely dependent on the market's appetite for Strive paper. Both require understanding that these are perpetual, subordinated instruments tied to the Bitcoin cycle — the full framework is in our Bitcoin preferreds guide and the live-data preferreds hub. The practical side —which brokers list them and how the dividend is withheld— is in how to buy Strategy's preferred stock.
Data as of August 5, 2026, verified against SEC filings from both issuers and CoinDesk. This article is refreshed monthly. SatsIntel is informational: nothing above is financial advice.
