Michael Saylor: Strategy’s STRC Preferred Stock Hits $8.5B in 9 Months, ‘Going Viral’

Michael Saylor Hails STRC as ‘Going Viral’ After $8.5 Billion Surge

Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Strategy (MSTR), delivered a keynote at Bitcoin 2026 on Tuesday, positioning STRC, Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, as the fastest-growing credit product in the world. The nine-month-old preferred stock instrument trades near its $100 par value on Nasdaq and offers an 11.5% annualized monthly dividend.

Saylor framed his argument around what he calls digital credit—a liquid, transparent, and scalable alternative to traditional private credit. He opened with a foundational premise:

“The world is built on capital. The world runs on credit.”

Bitcoin as ‘Ideal Capital’

For Saylor, Bitcoin represents the capital layer—engineered, digital, portable, and historically superior to alternatives. He highlighted Bitcoin’s roughly 38% annualized return over the past five years, contrasting it sharply with gold, the S&P 500, and real estate, which he described as “awful.”

STRC: The Credit Layer Built on Bitcoin

Saylor positioned STRC as the credit layer built atop Bitcoin. By stripping out Bitcoin’s volatility and routing excess returns to common equity holders, STRC delivers what he called a “comfortable ride” for investors seeking cash flows rather than price exposure. He contrasted digital credit with traditional private credit, arguing that private credit is illiquid, opaque, and fee-laden, while digital credit is liquid, transparent, homogeneous, scalable, accessible, and fee-free.

“We designed a digital instrument that is good for the investor,” Saylor said, framing STRC as a structural correction to incentive problems in private markets. He drew a historical parallel to 19th-century American railroads, where preferred capital comprised 20 to 30% of institutional financing before fading from use. Saylor argued that Strategy has reintroduced the model in the 21st century, anchored in Bitcoin rather than railroad track.

STRC’s $8.5 Billion Dominance

Saylor presented STRC’s growth metrics as the centerpiece of his talk. In nine months, STRC reached approximately $8.5 billion in notional value—larger than the entire existing universe of monthly-paying preferred securities combined. He cited annual growth of around 350%, with April inflows alone annualizing to $38 billion per year. Liquidity has grown by a factor of eight in five months.

“This is going viral,” Saylor told the audience. Bitcoin Magazine highlighted his claim on Twitter:

“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.”

Saylor described the product as sitting in hypergrowth with no clear end in sight, positioning STRC as a structural innovation in credit markets built on Bitcoin’s capital foundation.