How Strategy Is Using STRC Funding to Chase 1 Million Bitcoin in 2026

Strategy’s latest buying spree has pushed its Bitcoin holdings past 760,000 BTC and, more importantly for markets, clarified how the firm now intends to finance an aggressive run toward 1 million coins. The key driver is no longer just its common stock, MSTR, but a rapidly scaling preferred stock program, STRC, that is reshaping both its capital structure and its market risk profile.

Inside Strategy’s latest multi-billion dollar Bitcoin buys

In the week leading up to March 16, Strategy acquired 22,337 Bitcoin for roughly $1.57 billion, at an average price of $70,194 per BTC. That single week ranks among the company’s five largest on record and lifted its total holdings to 761,068 BTC, worth about $56.5 billion at prevailing prices.

This push followed an already aggressive prior week, when Strategy bought 17,994 BTC for $1.28 billion using a similar approach. Across the two-week stretch, the firm deployed nearly $2.85 billion into Bitcoin.

What matters most for traders and investors is not only the scale of those purchases, but how they were funded. Of the $1.57 billion used for the most recent acquisition, about 75% came from selling 11.9 million shares of its variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, STRC, generating roughly $1.18 billion in proceeds. The remaining $396 million came from issuing 2.8 million shares of MSTR Class A common stock.

Historically, Strategy’s Bitcoin accumulation model was straightforward: issue common equity at a premium to the BTC on its balance sheet, then convert that capital into more Bitcoin. The new phase of the strategy adds a second, distinct funding channel via STRC, which is now providing the majority of the cash behind its largest recent buys.

STRC: from side instrument to primary funding engine

STRC fundamentally broadens who can finance Strategy’s Bitcoin buying. While MSTR targets investors willing to take high-beta equity exposure to Bitcoin, STRC is tailored for income-focused holders seeking yield and relatively stable principal.

The preferred stock pays an 11.50% annualized dividend, distributed monthly in cash, and is structured to trade near its $100 par value. That design aims to attract capital that might not otherwise step into volatile Bitcoin or Bitcoin-proxy equities, but is willing to underwrite a high coupon backed by Strategy’s BTC-heavy balance sheet.

The rapid scaling of STRC shows how quickly this channel is deepening. According to the company’s capital tracker, Strategy reported $3.4 billion of STRC notional outstanding on Feb. 1. By March 16, that figure had climbed to about $5.02 billion — nearly a 50% increase in six weeks, just as the pace of Bitcoin purchases accelerated.

Michael Saylor has underscored this momentum publicly, noting on X that STRC has become the most liquid preferred stock by trading volume, surpassing preferred offerings from firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Boeing. The company also reported that its Bitcoin per share increased 3.0% in the first two weeks of March, attributing that rise to growing demand for STRC.

For investors trying to model Strategy’s buying power, this matters. STRC has effectively moved from being a supporting instrument to a primary financing lever. The firm now sells common stock to momentum-driven capital and preferred stock to yield-seeking capital, channeling both streams into additional Bitcoin.

Can STRC-backed funding really support 1 million BTC?

Analysts are already extrapolating what the STRC ramp-up could mean for Strategy’s total Bitcoin stack in 2026. Adam Livingston, a Bitcoin analyst, argues that the scaling of the preferred program could materially reshape the firm’s buying capacity.

Livingston points out that Strategy raised $1.557 billion from STRC alone in the last two weeks. Even under a conservative assumption that the firm maintains that pace for only 20 of the remaining 41 weeks this year, STRC issuance would still contribute around $16 billion in proceeds. His framework adds room for program growth, fuller issuance months, and incremental MSTR sales, leading him to suggest Strategy could add as much as $40 billion worth of Bitcoin this year in an upside scenario. He characterizes that outlook as his own estimate, not company guidance.

The near-term data supports the broader directional claim: Strategy is now on a numerical path toward 1 million BTC by year-end, if it can sustain current funding and buying conditions.

From Feb. 1 to March 16, the firm added 47,566 Bitcoin, averaging about 1,081 BTC per day. To hit 1 million BTC by Dec. 31, it needs to acquire another 238,932 coins — roughly 824 BTC per day for the rest of the year. That required run rate is actually lower than what the company has achieved since early February.

The capital requirement is substantial. At a Bitcoin price of about $73,369, purchasing the remaining 238,932 BTC would cost around $17.53 billion. At $85,000 per BTC, the figure rises to roughly $20.31 billion. Those numbers illustrate why the expansion of the STRC base is so central to the thesis: common stock alone would have to work far harder to cover that scale of buying.

If Strategy does reach 1 million BTC, it would control about 4.76% of Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million-coin maximum supply, up from roughly 3.62% today. That level of concentration would also need to be understood against the new issuance backdrop. Post-2024 halving, miners are expected to produce only about 130,500 new BTC between mid-March and year-end. Hitting 1 million would require Strategy to absorb around 183% of all newly mined coins in that period, forcing it to source a large share of its purchases from existing holders in the secondary market.

Rachael Lucas, an analyst at BTC Markets, notes that at Strategy’s recent daily acquisition rate, the company could potentially surpass the estimated 1.1 million BTC attributed to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, as early as March 2027. In the nearer term, the firm is already on a trajectory to widen its lead over other large holders, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which held about 571,700 BTC at the time of reporting.

For traders, the takeaway is clear: as long as STRC and MSTR issuance remain accretive and supported by market demand, Strategy can continue to act as a structurally persistent bid in the Bitcoin market, with growing sensitivity to funding conditions.

Premium, payouts, and the structural risks behind the model

Beneath the aggressive accumulation, Strategy’s approach carries specific structural vulnerabilities that investors in BTC, MSTR, and STRC need to understand.

First, the entire strategy depends on maintaining a premium in its market-based net asset value (mNAV). The company currently reports an mNAV of 1.18, meaning the equity trades at a meaningful premium to the value of the underlying Bitcoin on its balance sheet. That premium is what allows new equity and preferred issuance to be accretive on a per-share BTC basis.

If that premium compresses sharply — due to a decline in Bitcoin prices, higher interest rates, or shifting investor sentiment — Strategy’s ability to raise fresh capital on favorable terms could be severely constrained. Without that capital, the pace of accumulation would have to slow, pause, or be restructured.

Second, STRC introduces large and growing cash obligations. With $5.02 billion of preferred stock outstanding at an 11.50% annualized coupon, the firm faces an annual dividend requirement of roughly $578 million, or about $48 million per month, paid in cash. Strategy has disclosed a $2.25 billion reserve earmarked for preferred dividends and debt interest, providing a buffer, but the obligations are recurring and sizable.

Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at Arca, has highlighted the long-term solvency questions that flow from this structure. He notes that Strategy currently generates zero earnings before interest and taxes, leaving it with no traditional interest coverage. In his view, the combined annual burden of interest and dividend payments, now exceeding $1 billion, means the company will eventually face constraints in how it services these obligations unless some underlying dynamic changes.

Dorman outlines several possible long-run paths:

• Bitcoin appreciates sufficiently and consistently, allowing Strategy to keep issuing equity and preferred stock at attractive terms to roll its obligations and continue accumulating.
• The company halts or cuts dividend payments on STRC — a move he views as logically plausible, but one that would likely mark the end of the current high-yield accumulation cycle.
• Strategy sells a portion of its Bitcoin holdings annually to cover interest and dividends, a step Dorman argues would undermine the core investment narrative that has attracted capital to MSTR.
• The firm uses part of its Bitcoin to acquire a cash-flowing business, effectively evolving into a BTC-denominated holding company with operating earnings to service its capital structure.
• A downside scenario where a severe Bitcoin price crash pushes asset values below debt, raising the risk of default; Dorman estimates this stress threshold around $20,000 per BTC.
• A more optimistic possibility in which Bitcoin evolves into a productive asset, allowing Strategy to earn yield by lending or writing covered calls, using that income to offset interest and dividend costs.

Dorman characterizes Strategy’s current configuration as financially clever but inherently vulnerable. While he notes that there are no covenants forcing the company to sell Bitcoin to cover obligations — eliminating the risk of forced liquidation — he stresses that voluntary selling to meet interest and dividend payments is a genuine risk if other options close. If investors are convinced that management will never sell BTC, he argues, they must also accept that dividend payments could eventually stop.

He further points out that four major stakeholder groups — BTC holders, MSTR debt holders, STRC preferred shareholders, and MSTR common shareholders — currently all feel secure based on their own assumptions about the future. Yet those assumptions are, in his view, mutually incompatible over the long term, creating a structural tension that is central to the risk profile of the Strategy trade.

What this means for Bitcoin markets and Strategy exposure

For crypto investors and Bitcoin-focused traders, Strategy’s STRC-driven expansion presents a mix of opportunity and risk to track in 2026.

On one side, as long as STRC demand remains strong, MSTR trades at a premium, and the market tolerates high-yield BTC-backed capital structures, Strategy is positioned to remain one of the largest and most persistent buyers of Bitcoin. Its program is already large enough to affect market liquidity, especially in a post-halving environment with reduced new supply.

On the other side, the entire engine is sensitive to funding conditions, equity-premium dynamics, and Bitcoin price volatility. A sustained drawdown in BTC, a compression in mNAV, or a shift in appetite for high-yield preferred stock could quickly alter Strategy’s ability to keep buying at current scale, with spillover effects for the narrative around corporate Bitcoin treasuries.

The push toward 1 million BTC is therefore not just a question of how much Bitcoin Strategy wants to own. It is a test of how far public markets will support a leveraged, yield-bearing, BTC-centric capital structure in a maturing Bitcoin market with structurally constrained new supply. For now, STRC has clearly become the key lever in that experiment.