Strive's Ben Workman Makes the Case for Bitcoin Treasuries After a Brutal Bear Market
Bitcoin treasury companies had a brutal stretch this year. Some sold Bitcoin under pressure, others restructured, and the whole sector got questioned in public. Strive's Ben Workman joined Simply Bitcoin to explain why his company came through it intact, and why he thinks the model still has a future.
THE LESSON FROM THE BEAR MARKET
Workman traced the sector's stress back to capital structure decisions made when Bitcoin was strong and capital was cheap in late 2024. Companies that took on convertible bond debt with coverage ratio requirements found themselves boxed in once Bitcoin's price and their balance sheets compressed. That forced some firms into restructurings and forced selling, exactly the headline-grabbing moments that made the treasury model look shaky this year.
Strive took a different path. The company raised its initial 750 million dollars in equity with no debt attached at all, a deliberate choice to preserve balance sheet flexibility. Strive Asset Management signed a financial arrangement to raise 750 million dollars primarily to buy Bitcoin, electing not to raise any debt financing in the transaction in order to preserve maximal leverage capacity in the future. Workman argued that decision is why Strive kept operating and issuing through the down cycle while others were frozen out of the capital markets entirely.
WHAT SATA ACTUALLY IS
Much of the conversation centered on Strive's SATA preferred stock, which pays a 13 percent annualized dividend on a daily basis, a first for a US-listed security. Strive's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock currently pays a 13 percent annualized dividend, and the daily payouts began June 16, marking the first US listed security to pay cash dividends every business day.
Workman was direct that SATA is not a Bitcoin exposure vehicle in the way Strive's common equity is. It is structured closer to fixed income, backed by Strive's Bitcoin holdings and designed to hand off the daily volatility of Bitcoin to common shareholders while paying preferred holders a stable yield. The company holds a substantial dividend reserve as a buffer, which Workman said would let Strive keep paying SATA dividends for many months even if capital markets activity froze completely, a scenario that has not occurred during the current cycle.
Workman pushed back on the idea that products like SATA are somehow anti-Bitcoin or a substitute for holding the asset directly. His argument: SATA exists for investors whose mandates cannot hold Bitcoin outright but can hold equities and preferred stock, and every dollar that flows into it ultimately supports Bitcoin accumulation on Strive's balance sheet.
STILL EARLY
Asked directly whether Bitcoin's adoption curve has diminishing returns from here, Workman said no. His reasoning centers on the scale of the US debt problem relative to Bitcoin's market cap, and on a wave of asset allocators, from BlackRock's own published research recommending a 1 to 2 percent Bitcoin allocation to sovereign wealth considerations, who are only beginning to size positions in the asset. He does not think the story is played out. He thinks it has barely started, and that the last bear market was a stress test the strongest treasury companies will come out of stronger, not weaker.
This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.
