Strategy Pauses Bitcoin Buying as Strive Adds BTC

Strive Expands Bitcoin Position

Strive added 1,109 BTC between May 19 and May 22, increasing its Bitcoin position to 16,500 BTC. The company also reported about $93.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and roughly $50.1 million in fair value tied to holdings of Strategy’s Stretch preferred stock product, STRC.

Strive is evaluating refreshed at-the-market stock sale programs that could fund additional Bitcoin purchases. During the reporting period, Strive increased its Class A common shares outstanding by more than 2.2 million shares, while its SATA preferred stock count rose by about 515,000 shares.

Strive said earlier in May that it would begin paying daily dividends on SATA preferred shares at a 13% annualized rate in June. The company described SATA as the first listed U.S. security designed to distribute dividends every business day and said it had eliminated all outstanding debt.

Strive now ranks as the seventh-largest public corporate Bitcoin holder, with roughly $1.3 billion in BTC on its balance sheet, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET data cited in the material. Public Bitcoin treasury adoption remains broad, with about 198 public Bitcoin treasury companies holding 1.24 million BTC, equal to roughly 5.9% of Bitcoin’s total supply.

Bitcoin-linked preferred securities are being framed by issuers as “digital credit,” with Strive’s SATA in the same broader category as Strategy’s preferred securities Stretch, Stride, Strife and Strike. Strategy’s STRC, launched in July 2025, carries a variable dividend yield of about 11.5%, recorded a record $1.53 billion in daily trading volume earlier in May and has been described by Michael Saylor as Strategy’s primary vehicle for funding Bitcoin purchases in 2026.

SATA’s market capitalization stood at about $332 million, compared with Strategy’s STRC at more than $10 billion. Strive Chief Risk Officer Jeff Walton said BTC-backed securities could reshape traditional finance, stating, “You can start to rethink and reimagine what money looks like, reimagine what credit looks like,” and adding that the idea was “so simple it seems like it shouldn’t work.”

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $1.54 billion in combined net outflows across the six trading days leading up to Friday. Santiment described the mounting outflows as a “counter-indicator” and said ETF flows disproportionately reflect retail investor sentiment rather than smart-money positioning.

BitMine Faces Ethereum Losses While Seeking Index Catalyst

Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies made its largest purchase of the year last week, acquiring 111,942 ETH valued at over $237 million. This addition brings the company's total ETH holdings to 5,390,404, approximately worth $11.4 billion. BitMine now controls more than 4.4% of the total circulating ETH supply, making significant progress toward its goal of reaching 5%, which its chairman, Tom Lee, expects to achieve “sometime in 2026.”

BitMine’s Ethereum treasury began after a $250 million private placement and included a July 14 disclosure of 163,142 ETH worth about $500 million. COIN360 reported that the company’s Ethereum portfolio is sitting on about $7.3 billion to $7.35 billion in unrealized losses, based on an average ETH purchase price of $3,513 and an Ethereum crypto price backdrop where ETH has fallen more than 57% from a Coinbase peak near $4,955 in October 2025.

COIN360 reported that Ethereum’s market position weakened alongside BitMine’s drawdown, with ETH dominance around 10%, down from roughly 15% in August 2025. The decline added pressure to BitMine’s ETH-heavy treasury as ETF outflows and negative sentiment persisted across the crypto price index and broader coin market cap landscape.

BitMine is being considered for Russell 1000 inclusion after FTSE Russell published preliminary index additions and deletions on May 23. Chairman Tom Lee said BitMine appeared on the preliminary list, but the new index composition is not final and is scheduled to take effect after U.S. markets close on June 26, 2026.

Tom Lee cited a large-cap inclusion threshold above $5.7 billion, while BitMine’s market capitalization was reported at $8.58 billion. BitMine’s equity weakness remains material, with BMNR down 40% year to date and trading at $18.88, even as possible Russell 1000 inclusion could require index-tracking ETFs and mutual funds to buy BMNR shares if confirmed.