STRC vs SATA: The Two Biggest 'Digital Credit' Products, Compared

The one-sentence take

STRC and SATA are both perpetual preferred stocks that pay a high variable yield — but neither gives you bitcoin. You're buying issuer credit risk with a preferred-stock wrapper, and the yield is the lure, not the assurance.

What these actually are

Both products sit in the "Digital Credit" lane: fixed-income-style instruments issued on top of a bitcoin treasury. The issuer keeps the bitcoin; you get a dividend. You do not own a pro-rata claim on the underlying BTC — you own a preferred share whose value depends on the issuer's balance sheet and willingness to keep paying. Strategy's own product page is explicit: preferred securities "are not collateralized by the Company's bitcoin holdings and only have a preferred claim on the residual assets of the company" (verified — strategy.com/strc/learn).

Dual-methodology note: both products appear on two Pledge rubrics. STRC scores 7.4 on the treasuries 7-factor set and 7.92 on the Digital Credit / stablecoins 8-factor set; SATA scores 7.2 and 7.21 respectively. The gap is larger on STRC. Scores are category-relative — a treasuries 7.4 is not a loans 7.4. Do not collapse the two numbers into one.

The rate is the lure

On paper SATA looks better: ~13.88% effective vs STRC's 12.00%, and it pays every business day — a genuinely novel structure (Strive: "first listed security in the history of U.S. capital markets to pay cash dividends every single Business Day," eff. Jun 16 2026). STRC's rate is also variable. Per the certificate mechanics (paraphrased, not legal advice): the rate can be cut only in small steps and never below One-Month Term SOFR; and it can't be reduced at all unless all accumulated dividends are paid. Those are two separate conditions, not one. The 12% is sticky-downward by design — but it is still board-declared, not a coupon on a bond.

But the rate is only half the story. The question that matters is what the issuer is doing to fund it.

The risk is the issuer's balance sheet

STRC — the bigger, more liquid, but structurally stressed one.

• Strategy is the largest public BTC holder — 843,775 BTC as of Jul 26 2026 (Strategy Q2 2026 press release). That is the post-sale figure, not the June peak (~846k). Later mid-August reports put holdings at ~840,447 after further sales (Reported, not verified against a primary 8-K in this pass — re-check at publish).
• Strategy is selling bitcoin to service the preferred stack. It sold $218.4M of BTC in 2026 YTD (as of the Q2 release) to fund preferred dividends, and the board authorized a $1.25B "BTC Monetization Program" for reserve-building, dividend/interest funding, and related capital actions (8-K / Digital Credit Capital Framework, Jun 29 2026). Avg BTC cost basis is ~$75,400–$75,500 range; BTC has traded below that for stretches of 2026 — so some sales land below cost.
• Q2 2026 net loss was $8.22B — driven by a non-cash fair-value markdown on bitcoin under ASU 2023-08, not operational cash burn. Still a real mark on the income statement; not the same as burning $8B of cash.
• Counterweight, not buried: Strategy's USD Reserve stood at $3.75B at the Q2 release — more than 2.1 years of preferred dividend + interest coverage (company figure). The BTC Monetization Program is capped at $1.25B and is framed as reserve-building, not open-ended liquidation. Later company commentary (mid-Aug) has pointed to a larger reserve (~$4.8B / ~2.8y) — Reported, re-verify at publish.
• The stress mechanic is a tail-risk doom loop if BTC doesn't rally and the reserve runs down: higher yield demanded → more BTC sold / more dilution to cover it → thinner treasury relative to obligations → higher yield demanded. It is a scenario, not the base case while the multi-year USD Reserve is intact. STRC closed July ~10.5% below par (around $89.46 on Jul 31 per secondary market reports) after seven straight dividend hikes (9% → 12%, Jul 2025 → Jul 2026); by mid-to-late August 2026 it had recovered toward the mid-$90s / high-$90s (Reported market prices — timestamp at publish; do not ship a stale discount). August 2026 was the first HOLD at 12%.
• Dilution is real: a $21B STRC ATM annex (March 2026, company press) plus share count already well above early-2026 data-layer estimates (~104.9M shares / ~$10.49B notional per 10-Q 6/30/26 context in prior verified work; strategy.com/strc/learn showed ~$10.1B notional at last check).

SATA — the higher-yielding, much smaller, shorter-history one.

• Strive held 20,167 BTC as of Aug 7 2026 (Strive 8-K, Aug 10 2026) — roughly 2.4% of Strategy's Jul-26 stack (20,167 / 843,775). Mid-June third-party figures of ~19,105 BTC are older; use the 8-K. The balance sheet is far thinner relative to the yield it's promising.
• Public history is ~9 months (listed Nov 10 2025 → Aug 2026), not ~7. SATA share count on the same 8-K: 7,829,502 (up from earlier ~4.3–4.6M prints earlier in 2026). A $500M ATM program has been reported (CoinDesk / secondary — Reported, not verified against the primary ATM prospectus in this pass).
• The 13.88% effective yield is board-declared and variable — it can be cut, and a small issuer paying a market-leading rate is exactly where you want to ask how it's being funded. Strive has also disclosed holdings of Strategy's STRC (505,000 shares on the same 8-K) — cross-issuer preferred exposure, not pure BTC treasury isolation.

The honest caveat

Neither product is bitcoin. Both are:

• Issuer credit risk — if the issuer's balance sheet deteriorates, the preferred suffers regardless of BTC price. No BTC is pledged to you.
• Variable-rate — the yield can move (STRC: step-down + SOFR floor + unpaid-dividend stopper as separate certificate conditions; SATA: board-declared).
• Dilution-exposed — both run active ATM / issuance programs that grow the share count and the dividend obligation.
• Non-convertible — no equity upside; pure income claim on residual assets.
• Not a bank deposit, not FDIC/SIPC insured — Strategy's own STRC page says so in plain language. Believe it.

The distinction that matters most: STRC is the liquid, established name whose issuer is actively managing a multi-year USD Reserve while also selling BTC and common/preferred paper to keep the credit machine funded. SATA is the higher-yielding upstart whose issuer is a fraction of the size, with ~9 months of public history. Different risks, same wrapper.

How to read this on the 8-factor / treasuries lens

You do not need the full methodology page to use the scores. For preferreds sitting on a bitcoin treasury, the load-bearing questions map cleanly:

1. What funds the dividend when BTC is down? (cash reserve vs BTC sales vs dilution)
2. Is any BTC actually pledged to you? (for both: no)
3. How fast can the rate fall, and who decides? (certificate mechanics + board discretion)
4. How big is the treasury relative to the preferred stack? (STRC: deep treasury, large preferred stack; SATA: thin treasury, smaller stack, higher rate)
5. Track record through a drawdown (STRC has paid through a deep 2026 BTC drawdown with a stated 18-month consecutive-payment track at Q2; SATA is younger)

A 7.4 / 7.92 is strong on a strict rubric — not a green light. A high score is not a buy rating.

The take

The yield is what they pay you. The issuer's balance sheet — and what it's doing to fund that yield — is the risk. Compare on the second one first. Risk is the product.