At the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), told a packed crowd that the company's STRC preferred stock has grown to $8.5 billion in just nine months, making it what he called “the largest and most liquid preferred stock in the world.” The milestone marks a pivotal moment for digital credit instruments moving from concept to mainstream adoption.
Digital Credit: A New Dimension for Bitcoin Capital
Saylor opened his keynote by framing the past year as a turning point for digital credit, a category he described as engineered credit built on bitcoin as the underlying capital asset. He emphasized that the conditions for this product category had existed for decades, but no one had assembled the pieces correctly. “Digital credit is the killer application of digital capital,” Saylor said. “By combining listed public companies, bitcoin as a balance sheet asset, perpetual preferred equity, and a shelf registration with an ATM program, we created something that had never existed before.” Strategy currently holds 818,334 bitcoin, making it the largest corporate bitcoin holder globally. Saylor used this position to argue that bitcoin’s returns can be split between long-term capital holders and short-term credit investors seeking steady yield.
STRC Mechanics: 5x Overcollateralization to Withstand 80% Drop
STRC is structured around an overcollateralization model. Saylor explained that a 5:1 collateral ratio means the underlying asset can fall 80% while still fully protecting credit investors. The capital investor absorbs that loss, while the credit holder is insulated. He cited bitcoin’s approximately 38% annual returns over the past five years, outperforming gold, real estate, and money market instruments. Saylor argued this creates enough headroom to pay credit investors an 11% yield while the remainder compounds for equity holders. Bitcoin’s volatility currently runs around 40, but through overcollateralization and active management, STRC has significantly compressed that volatility, with targets to reduce it further. The result is a product that extracts yield within a month rather than asking investors to wait a decade for gains.
Targeting a $350 Billion Slice of Private Credit
Saylor pointed to the global $3.5 trillion private credit market as the immediate opportunity. He described that market as illiquid, opaque, and largely restricted to qualified investors with high fees. In contrast, digital credit is liquid, transparent, scalable, and fee-free. “Even if it captures 10% of the private credit market, that represents $350 billion,” Saylor said. STRC’s shelf registration has expanded to $21 billion, far exceeding historical norms. The instrument is accessible through major brokerage platforms to retail, institutional, and corporate investors. He added that return-of-capital dividends can be structured for tax deferral, allowing investors to receive income without triggering immediate taxable events.
Future Roadmap: ETFs, Indexes, and Billions of Users
The longer-term plan, Saylor said, includes increasing dividend frequency, expanding into ETFs and indexes, and eventually bringing high-yield digital savings instruments to billions of users worldwide. He projects that digital credit will scale into trillions globally, with STRC’s rapid success being just the beginning. Notably, Strategy added another 34,164 bitcoin to its treasury this week, bringing total holdings close to 850,000 BTC and moving toward the one-million-bitcoin target.