Strive adds 29 bitcoin for $2.2 million as weekly purchases slow

What happened

Strive acquired 29 bitcoin for approximately $2.2 million during the week spanning Oct. 31 to Nov. 6, paying an average of $75,721 per coin, according to a Monday 8-K filing. The figure includes fees and expenses. The purchase moved the company's total holdings to 43,153 BTC, up from 43,124 as of Oct. 30.

Chairman and CEO Matthew Cole shared the same numbers on X, writing that the acquisition brought total holdings to 43,153 bitcoin, and the company's corporate account reshared the post shortly afterward. Both outlets covering the filing, Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin.com News, cited Cole's post alongside the regulatory disclosure.

The addition is well below the pace Strive maintained through October. In the prior week, running from Oct. 24 to Oct. 30, the company bought 124 bitcoin at an average of about $80,526 each, a purchase valued near $10 million. Across the whole of October, Strive added 15,124 bitcoin, having started the month with 28,000 coins on its books at the end of September.

Cash and cash equivalents stood at $487.6 million on Nov. 6, down from $490.4 million a week earlier. That $2.8 million decline broadly tracks the bitcoin spend plus associated fees. The 8-K did not separate out a distinct funding source for the latest coins, and Strive has not published a companywide cost basis for its treasury the way Strategy does each week.

Why it matters

The size of the weekly purchase puts a question mark over whether October's rapid accumulation was an exception or the start of a sustained program. Strive has relied on preferred equity rather than debt to build its stack, and those instruments carry dividend obligations that continue regardless of how many coins the company buys. Bitcoin.com News noted that the pullback in the common shares from October levels raises questions about financing costs, dilution and how willing the market is to reward further treasury expansion.

Strive also competes for attention with Strategy, the largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder. On the same Monday, Strategy disclosed a purchase of 1,036 bitcoin for about $81.9 million at an average of $79,012, lifting its holdings to 850,364 BTC. Bitcoin.com News calculated that Strategy's latest buy was nearly 36 times the size of Strive's, though both companies are using increasingly elaborate capital-raising structures to fund accumulation.

What the data shows

The filing also detailed movement in Strive's securities. SATS shares increased by 33,141 to 7,036,559, a count that includes shares sold through 4:00 p.m. Eastern that settle the next business day, while SATA was unchanged at 14,030,176. Effective common shares outstanding held steady at 127,331,109, after a Class A increase of 15,382 was offset by an equal decline in Class B. Strive continues to hold 505,000 shares of Strategy's variable-rate STRC preferred, marked at a fair value of $50.4 million on Nov. 6, up from $50.1 million a week earlier.

With bitcoin trading near $74,650 at the time of reporting, the 43,153-coin treasury was worth roughly $3.22 billion on paper, about 1.4% below the latest weekly average purchase price. ASST closed Friday at $21.45, up from Thursday's $20.59 but below its Oct. 21 local high near $30.75; its 52-week range runs from $7.02 to $34.40. Strategy's 850,364 coins were acquired for $64.16 billion at an average cost of $75,456.

Background

Strive's treasury grew quickly this fall. The company closed a registered offering of 7 million SATS shares on Oct. 20, raising about $609 million in net proceeds after roughly $630 million in gross proceeds, and later set up a $1 billion at-the-market program for the same security. Earlier in the fall it made multi-thousand-coin purchases, including a 6,182-coin buy funded with preferred proceeds.

The SATS series pays a 15% fixed dividend against a $100 stated amount, which Bitcoin.com News described as an effective annual yield of about 16.7% at the offering price. Strive's older SATA preferred carries a variable-rate dividend, recently near 13%. Third-quarter results released Nov. 6 reported $509 million in GAAP net income, largely driven by bitcoin valuation gains, along with a year-to-date bitcoin yield of 63.2% through Sept. 30 and 18.5% for the quarter alone.

What to watch

The immediate question is whether another week of single-digit coin purchases marks a pause after October's run or a new baseline, now that the preferred at-the-market program is the main source of funding. How much of that $1 billion capacity finds buyers will shape the size of future purchases, as will the gap between bitcoin's market price and Strive's average acquisition cost. The company's bitcoin-per-share yield, a measure it uses to track exposure per share, is likely to draw scrutiny as dividend obligations and share issuance continue.

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