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Strategy holds its bitcoin-funding preferred at 12% for a fourth straight month
Strategy kept the annualized dividend on its STRC preferred stock at 12% for October, a fourth straight month at that rate after a 9% launch in July 2025. Each dollar it raises this way to buy bitcoin now costs 12 cents a year, a third more than at launch.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- Each month Strategy resets the rate to keep STRC near par, weighing bitcoin's price swings, credit spreads, STRC's trading level and its own balance sheet.
- A proposal awaiting shareholder approval would replace STRC's semi-monthly dividend periods with daily accruals.
- Holders rank ahead of MSTR common stock for dividends and in liquidation but cannot convert their shares into common.
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Why it matters
- cost Bitcoin bought with STRC money has to gain more than 12% a year before the purchase covers the dividend that paid for it.
- constraint Holders cannot convert into MSTR common, so if bitcoin weakens and the shares slip below par, Strategy's main way to pull them back is a higher coupon.
- exposure STRC's first claim on payouts rests on a reserve that could fund a year of 12% dividends on no more than about $21 billion of par, before other obligations take their share.
The climb from 9% to 12% took twelve months [5]. It lifted the annual payout on each $100 share from $9 to $12, a 33% increase in what Strategy pays for every dollar it raises through STRC [1]. Since July the rate has stayed put [2]. Strategy sets the rate each month to keep the shares trading close to par [5]. At the October review, then, the company judged that 12% was still enough to do that.
What the hold shows is that the posted coupon has stopped rising. Whether the cost of the money has levelled off depends on where STRC trades against $100, and Crypto Briefing's report does not give a trading price or the amount of STRC outstanding.
If the shares sit at par, 12% is the clearing rate and the summer plateau is a real price. A fall in bitcoin or wider credit spreads, two of the inputs Strategy names [6], would argue for a higher rate at the November decision [11]. Shares trading above par would leave room for a cut. I think the hold is a reading on four months of those inputs, and they can push the rate back up as easily as they held it. The case against that view is that four months at one rate, after a year of raises [3], is what a par-targeting stock looks like once its issuer has found the price.
The coupon is backed by Strategy's US dollar reserve, about $2.55 billion in mid-2026 according to Crypto Briefing [7]. Divide that by the 12% rate and it pays one year of dividends on $21.25 billion of STRC par [3], if it paid for nothing else. The reserve also backs other obligations [7]. The real cover is lower than that, and every new share sold at 12% draws on the same pool.
The daily-accrual proposal needs shareholder approval [10]. It would turn a $0.50 step twice a month [4] into about 3.3 cents a share each day [4]. According to Crypto Briefing, the change could smooth the price swings that tend to cluster around payment dates [10]. I'd expect the larger effect to fall on the rate-setting. STRC's trading level is one of the inputs Strategy uses to set the coupon [6]. A price that drops on schedule twice a month gives a noisier reading of what investors think the stock is worth.
What to watch
- November's STRC rate decision, where any move above 12% would end the plateau after four months.
- The shareholder vote on moving STRC from semi-monthly periods to daily dividend accruals.
- Any disclosure of STRC's trading price against its $100 par, the reading that shows whether 12% is clearing the market.