Strive leans on custodians and an 18-month cash buffer to protect its Bitcoin

Strive, the Dallas-based Bitcoin treasury company, says its strategy rests on two pillars: institutional custodians hold its coins, and an 18-month cash reserve pays its dividends. The point of that pairing is simple. Strive wants to keep paying investors without ever being forced to sell Bitcoin, even if the market spends a long time in the basement.

Strive, Inc. trades on Nasdaq under the ticker ASST and was co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy. As of early November 2026, the company held 43,153 BTC, valued at approximately $3 billion. That stack makes Strive the fourth-largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin.

Custodians and Cash Strategy

The safekeeping of Strive's Bitcoin is handled by institutional custodians—specialized firms whose whole job is securing large digital-asset positions for clients who cannot afford to lose a private key. The more interesting piece is how Strive funds itself. It carries no traditional debt.

Instead, the company raises money through preferred stock. It has two flavors on offer: SATA, which carries a variable dividend of roughly 13%, and SATS, which pays a fixed 15%. Those dividends are paid daily, an unusual cadence for a corporate security.

From Semler to Top Holder

Strive's treasury strategy only began in 2025. Its initial Bitcoin came through the acquisition of Semler Scientific, a deal that involved a reverse merger. Semler had already built a Bitcoin position of its own before the combination.

Since then, the company has kept buying. Its average acquisition cost sits between $87,000 and $88,000 per BTC. At an average cost of $87,000 to $88,000, 43,153 BTC would have cost well over $3.7 billion, yet the position is valued at approximately $3 billion.

In other words, the holdings appear to be worth less than Strive paid for them. That is precisely the scenario the cash reserve was designed for. A company underwater on its main asset, with debt payments looming, might be pushed to sell at the worst possible moment.

Investor Implications

For preferred holders, the pitch is yield. A fixed 15% on SATS and a variable figure near 13% on SATA sit well above what conventional fixed-income products typically offer, and the 18-month buffer is meant to make those payments feel less like a bet on next quarter's Bitcoin price.

The daily dividend structure creates a constant, predictable outflow, which is exactly why a dedicated cash pile matters so much to the model. For common shareholders in ASST, the debt-free approach removes one classic risk: there is no lender who can demand repayment or seize collateral.

Strive's stated goal of becoming the second-largest public Bitcoin holder will require substantial additional purchases. How it funds those buys, and whether the 18-month reserve stays intact while it does, will be the clearest signal of whether the conservative framing holds up in practice.