Saylor's perpetual coin-buying machine stalls, STRC's hundred-yuan peg is broken, and the high-yield strategy has failed?

Author: Jae, PANews

A $100 anchor—once the cornerstone of Strategy’s financing magic—has now hit a snag. This perpetual-motion financing machine, built by Michael Saylor to buy Bitcoin, is now stalling.

On April 14, Strategy’s perpetual preferred stock STRC broke below the $100 face-value anchor on Nasdaq, sinking to a low of $99.06. Trading volume plunged to 47% of normal levels, and it has continued to trade in the discount range ever since.

STRC’s financing efficiency directly determines whether Strategy can continue accumulating more. And if STRC falls below par, it means the financing engine that fuels Saylor’s Bitcoin buying has temporarily gone into hibernation.

When this DAT (digital asset treasury) leader—globally holding the most Bitcoin—loses its most important incremental source of funding, the marginal buy-side support across the entire Bitcoin market becomes shaky.

STRC’s 11.5% high-yield price lock: Strategy builds a perpetual buy-Bitcoin engine

In July 2025, STRC officially came into being. It addressed Saylor’s pain point: without diluting MSTR ordinary shareholders’ voting rights, it continuously “draws blood” from traditional capital markets to buy Bitcoin.

The original design of STRC was to keep the trading price near the $100 face value, ensuring the company could continuously raise funds through an “At-the-Market” (At-the-Market, ATM) issuance program.

If the price stays below $100, the board increases dividends to attract investors seeking stable cash flows and bid up the price;

If the price is significantly above $100, dividends are maintained or reduced to lower financing costs.

Starting from an initial annualized dividend of 9%, STRC raised its dividend for seven consecutive months, and so far has already reached 11.5%. With a steady stream of investors entering for stable, high dividend yield, STRC has been held above par for the long term. That allows Saylor, through the ATM program, to convert money from the traditional markets into buy-side demand in the Bitcoin market.

In addition, Saylor abandoned the traditional capital-markets net profit valuation model and instead adopted a “Bitcoin gain” metric to define Strategy’s value as a “Bitcoin-denominated” enterprise.

This metric measures the percentage growth in Bitcoin holdings attributable to each share of common stock.

In the first quarter of 2026, Strategy achieved a 6.2% Bitcoin gain, and its full-year target is as high as 9.5%.

STRC is the leveraged tool to achieve this goal: by issuing preferred stock with fixed financing costs to buy Bitcoin with long-term appreciation potential.

According to Saylor’s calculations, as long as Bitcoin’s long-term annualized growth exceeds 2.05%, common shareholders will continue to benefit.

Over the past half year, this logic has cycled repeatedly: issue STRC for financing → buy Bitcoin → Bitcoin price rises → stock market value increases → STRC becomes more sought after → raise more money to buy more Bitcoin.

STRC is like a nonstop printing press, continuously delivering ammunition to Saylor’s Bitcoin empire.

STRC slips below the $100 anchor: Strategy pulls the “bi-weekly dividend” trick

The $100 face value is the lifeblood of STRC’s entire financing flywheel. Once it breaks down, ATM issuances effectively stall—the printing press simply stops.

And this de-anchoring is a double hit: macro headwinds plus worsening expectations.

The Iran war became the first straw that broke STRC’s back.

With shipping through the Strait of Hormuz disrupted, crude oil prices surged, igniting inflation concerns. Market expectations for interest-rate cuts were pushed back from mid-2026 to 2027.

For preferred shares like STRC that carry strong bond-like characteristics, the prolonged high level of the benchmark interest rate means the attractiveness of STRC’s 11.5% dividend is being diluted by the rise in risk-free rates.

At the same time, the fear and greed index in the crypto market once fell to 9, placing it in an “extreme fear” state. Funds that had been chasing stable returns started selling non-core assets, and STRC—whose liquidity is relatively weaker—was hit first.

If the macro environment is the external trigger, then the dividend decision on April 1 is the needle that popped the bubble.

On that day, Strategy announced it would keep the dividend at 11.5%, but it ended its streak of monthly dividend hikes that had lasted for seven consecutive months.

PANews believes the company’s intent was to signal confidence to the market: interest rates had reached a steady state, and prices were near par. However, in investors’ eyes, this move was misread as: the company’s financing capacity has hit a ceiling, and confidence in Bitcoin’s later-stage upside has faded.

Retail investors make up as much as 80% of STRC holders. Their drive to enter was powered by the inertia of the expectation that “dividends increase every month, and the price stays above par.”

The first time the dividend-hike momentum stopped directly shattered that belief. Retail investors exited in large numbers, trading volume plunged, and the $100 face-value anchor broke on cue.

When STRC falls below par, the impact is not only on Strategy itself, but also on the entire Bitcoin market’s supply-demand balance.

When STRC trades below par, ATM market issuance loses its meaning. Discounted issuance would further pressure the price, creating a vicious cycle that forces Strategy to stop issuing.

Real-world data also confirms this: the latest financing tracking shows STRC’s new financing amount is zero. The 34,164 Bitcoin large purchase Strategy completed last week was funded using remaining funds from the previous round of financing.

With STRC’s financing effectively halted, this largest long position in the Bitcoin market temporarily paused. The Bitcoin market also lost the weekly marginal buy-side support of $1–2 billion.

Faced with the crisis of tool failure, Strategy moved quickly, trying to regain pricing power through financial means.

Strategy announced it will hold a shareholder vote on April 28, proposing to increase STRC’s dividend frequency from once a month to once every half-month.

This is a precise psychological warfare move targeting retail investors. By shortening the dividend cycle, it reduces the price gap caused by ex-dividend dates (the next trading day after the record date for distributions of dividends). Historically, on ex-dividend dates, STRC’s price has fallen by an average of 45 cents, taking about 12 days to return to par.

Cash-flow returns every two weeks can significantly reduce reinvestment lag, making the instrument more appealing to retail investors sensitive to cash flow and to income-focused funds.

Once the proposal is approved, STRC will also become one of the very few listed equity instruments worldwide offering bi-weekly dividends.

To push back against market accusations of something Ponzi-like, Strategy also emphasized the depth of its non-Bitcoin assets. In disclosures, the company currently holds about $2.25 billion in cash reserves—enough to cover all preferred dividend obligations for about 30 months without issuing new shares or selling Bitcoin.

In addition, its traditional business intelligence software segment can generate $320 million in annual gross profit, supporting the company’s ability to survive in extreme market conditions.

4.3x BTC reserves can’t dispel controversy: STRC hides chronic bleeding risk

Even though STRC is supported by Bitcoin reserves, controversy surrounding this instrument has never stopped.

Traditional finance experts such as Peter Schiff argue that Bitcoin itself generates no yield, and STRC’s high dividends are essentially achieved by bringing in new investors or by sacrificing the interests of ordinary shareholders.

Their logic is: Bitcoin price falls → STRC price declines → financing function is lost → unable to continue buying Bitcoin to support the price → forced to sell Bitcoin to pay dividends → Bitcoin price falls further.

Although Strategy can use proactive intervention to prevent a “death spiral,” it would still have to face a dilemma: either substantially dilute ordinary shareholders’ equity to raise funds, or continue pushing up the yield to maintain attractiveness—paying higher financing costs.

Therefore, STRC may not fall into a UST-style death spiral, but it does face a “self-reinforcing” downside risk—one that is more like “chronic blood loss.”

Strategy counters that the STRC model is based on Bitcoin’s value-appreciation attributes as a long-term deflationary asset. As long as Bitcoin’s appreciation speed exceeds the financing cost, preferred-share financing will create a positive asset-accumulation effect—not a transfer of funds from one place to patch another.

According to its disclosures, Bitcoin reserves currently cover more than 4.3 times the principal of preferred equity. That means only if Bitcoin falls below about $18,000 would STRC face material insolvency.

However, capital markets always react ahead of fundamentals. Before reaching that threshold, STRC’s secondary-market price could break down in advance, driven by panic in the Bitcoin market.

Investors should be wary: when participating in STRC trading, many often ignore its underlying legal definition. While it has a stated face value and fixed dividends on paper, legally it is an equity security. It has no mandatory principal repayment obligations and no fixed maturity date.

In the order of capital repayment, STRC ranks behind debt categories such as convertible bonds and secured debt.

STRC falling below the $100 face value is a deep-water zone that Bitcoin, as a DAT asset, must pass through as it matures.

For ordinary investors, STRC’s de-anchoring is a warning. In the crypto market, no form of “anchoring” is absolute—liquidity is always the first principle of survival.

STRC’s current 11.5% high yield is certainly tempting, but behind it lies implied credit risk and liquidity traps.

On the journey of a “Bitcoin-based” model, STRC falling below par is only a brief episode. As you pursue larger scale, ensuring the financing engine’s structural soundness is the key to winning this long race.

LAYOUT REFERENCE (source): total_lines=113, non_empty_lines=57, blank_lines=56