Strive's Bitcoin Buying Slows to 124 Coins After a Record $511 Million Week

Strive's bitcoin buying went from record setting to modest in the space of a week, and the drop off says less about the company backing away from bitcoin than about how it plans to keep paying for it.

The bitcoin treasury company, run by CEO Matt Cole and co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, disclosed in a Nov. 2 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it bought 124 BTC between Oct. 24 and Oct. 30 for roughly $10 million, at an average price of $80,526 per coin. The purchase lifted Strive's total holdings to 43,124 BTC, worth around $3.3 billion at the time.

A $511 MILLION WEEK, THEN A $10 MILLION ONE

The contrast with the week before is stark. Between Oct. 17 and Oct. 23, Strive spent $511.4 million to buy 6,182 BTC at an average of $82,732 per coin, its largest single purchase to date. The following week's buy came in at less than 2 percent the size of that spree.

Strive's own messaging suggests the slowdown was about financing, not conviction. Chief Investment Officer Ben Werkman addressed the smaller buy directly on X, writing that "there are times to be aggressive, and times to show restraint" and adding that the company would "always Strive to keep moving forward."

CASH FIRST, THEN A NEW LEVER

Most of the $10 million came from cash already on the balance sheet. Strive's cash and equivalents fell from $504.4 million to $490.4 million over the week, according to the filing.

The purchase also marked the first time Strive tapped its SATS at the market program, a facility opened Oct. 26 that lets the company sell up to $1 billion of SATS preferred shares over time. SATS sales accounted for all of the capital Strive raised through its at the market programs that week. Cole put the company's amplification ratio, debt and preferred stock measured against the value of its bitcoin, at 62.7 percent.

THE RACE FOR SECOND PLACE NARROWS

Strive remains the fourth largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, well behind Strategy's 849,327 BTC but closing in on the two companies directly ahead of it. It trailed Twenty One Capital's 43,514 BTC by roughly 390 coins and Metaplanet's 44,000 BTC by roughly 876 coins after the latest buy.

Cole has said publicly that finishing 2026 as the second largest corporate bitcoin holder, ahead of both Metaplanet and Twenty One Capital, is within reach. "I wouldn't say that's my base case," he said on the One Chair podcast in September, "but I would say it's in the possible set of cards."

A DIFFERENT PLAYBOOK THAN STRATEGY'S

The same week Strive bought its 124 BTC, Strategy added 811 BTC for about $65.5 million, funded by selling MSTR shares on the open market. Strategy spent far more, about $208.2 million, buying back its own STRC preferred stock, more than three times what it put into bitcoin.

Both companies run the same basic model, a public stock that holds bitcoin and sells preferred shares to help pay for it, but they made different bets with the money that model raised that week. Strategy spent its week defending its preferred stock. Strive spent its week, in much smaller amounts, on more bitcoin.