Crypto veteran Richard Byworth disclosed on June 27 that he had just assisted a family office in a major portfolio shift: selling 25% of its Micron (MU) holdings and plowing the proceeds into Strategy's preferred shares STRC at market price. The move ignited a firestorm in the comments section, with critics questioning both the logic and the fiduciary duty involved.
One Trade, Two Camps
According to Byworth, the family office had held Micron since 2020, amassing roughly 30x paper gains. Now it chose to take partial profit and rotate into STRC. "They are long-term allocators and understand Bitcoin," Byworth noted, adding they had discussed STRC since its launch. Critics, however, were unsparing: dumping a star performer to buy a name that had dropped nearly 25% in the past month — and using market orders — struck many as reckless. One user called STRC "a structure that will permanently eat itself."
STRC's Mechanics and the Discount Problem
STRC — Strategy's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock — carries a par value of $100 per share and an initial annual dividend yield of about 9%, paid monthly. Strategy theoretically adjusts the monthly rate to keep the market price near par, but reality tells a different story: STRC currently trades at $74.57, a steep discount of over 25%. The price-stabilizing mechanism has clearly broken down under recent selling pressure.
Defenders: Early Markets Breed Noise
Not everyone piled on. User NateSharp argued that the digital credit market surrounding Bitcoin is still nascent, and "early markets always attract loud voices who mistake volatility for fraud and patience for weakness. The real work is understanding structure, buyers, and time horizons." Another commenter suggested that many critics hold AI stocks and may want capital to flow back into their own positions, questioning their impartiality.
Who Is Richard Byworth?
Byworth is Managing Partner at Syz Capital (since 2022) and Chairman of FUTURE, a Swiss Bitcoin vault company that has raised about 28 million Swiss francs. Previously, he co-founded Eqonex/Diginex and served as CEO, taking the first digital asset ecosystem public on Nasdaq. Even earlier, he was Managing Director of Derivatives at Nomura Securities Asia Pacific. With deep traditional finance roots and a strong bet on Bitcoin infrastructure, his public endorsement of a beaten-down preferred stock carries more weight — and more potential conflict-of-interest scrutiny — than any retail chatter.