Bitcoin Magazine
Strategy’s (MSTR) Michael Saylor Says STRC is ‘Going Viral’ After $8.5 Billion Run‑Up
Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Strategy, took the Nakamoto Stage at Bitcoin 2026 on Tuesday to argue that a nine-month-old preferred stock instrument has become the fastest-growing credit product in the world — and that its expansion is only getting started.
The keynote, framed around what Saylor calls digital credit, was a structured pitch for STRC, Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, which trades on Nasdaq near its $100 par value and pays an 11.5% annualized monthly dividend.
He opened with a premise that set the tone for everything that followed: “The world is built on capital. The world runs on credit.”
For Saylor, Bitcoin is the capital layer. It is what he calls “ideal capital” — engineered, digital, portable, and historically superior to alternatives. He cited Bitcoin’s roughly 38% annualized return over the past five years against gold, the S&P 500, and real estate, which he described without hesitation as “awful.”
JUST IN: Michael Saylor said their BTC accumulation machine STRC “grew to be the largest preferred stock in the world within 8 months” They’re using STRC to mass buy as much bitcoin as they can pic.twitter.com/ElyFJFAvSc— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) April 28, 2026
STRC, in his framework, is the credit layer built on top: it strips Bitcoin’s volatility from the equation, routes the excess return to common equity holders, and delivers what he described as a “comfortable ride” to investors who want cash flows rather than price exposure.
The contrast he drew between digital credit and traditional private credit was one of the sharper arguments in the talk. Private credit, he said, is illiquid, opaque, discrete, and burdened with fees — structured primarily around what issuers want. Digital credit, by his definition, is liquid, transparent, homogeneous, scalable, accessible, and carries no fee.
“We designed a digital instrument that is good for the investor,” he said, framing STRC as a structural correction to the incentive problem embedded in private markets.
He placed this in historical context, arguing that preferred capital had a parallel in 19th-century American railroads, where it comprised 20 to 30% of institutional financing before fading from use. Saylor said Strategy has reintroduced the model in the 21st century, built on Bitcoin rather than railroad track.
STRC’s $8.5 Billion dominance
The numbers he presented at the Nakamoto Stage were the center of gravity for the talk. STRC reached about $8.5 billion in notional value in nine months, a figure that on its own would make it larger than the entire existing universe of monthly-paying preferred securities combined.
He put annual growth for the program at around 350%, said April inflows alone, when annualized, point t
