Michael Saylor, founder and govt chairman of Strategy, took the Nakamoto Stage at Bitcoin 2026 on Tuesday to argue {that a} nine-month-old most popular inventory instrument has develop into the fastest-growing credit score product on the earth — and that its enlargement is barely getting began.
The keynote, framed round what Saylor calls digital credit score, was a structured pitch for STRC, Strategy’s Variable Fee Sequence A Perpetual Stretch Most popular Inventory, which trades on Nasdaq close to its $100 par worth and pays an 11.5% annualized month-to-month dividend.
He opened with a premise that set the tone for every little thing that adopted: “The world is built on capital. The world runs on credit.”
For Saylor, Bitcoin is the capital layer. It’s what he calls “ideal capital” — engineered, digital, moveable, and traditionally superior to options. He cited Bitcoin’s roughly 38% annualized return over the previous 5 years in opposition to gold, the S&P 500, and actual property, which he described with out hesitation as “awful.”
STRC, in his framework, is the credit score layer constructed on high: it strips Bitcoin’s volatility from the equation, routes the surplus return to frequent fairness holders, and delivers what he described as a “comfortable ride” to buyers who need money flows reasonably than worth publicity.
The distinction he drew between digital credit score and conventional personal credit score was one of many sharper arguments within the speak. Non-public credit score, he mentioned, is illiquid, opaque, discrete, and burdened with charges — structured primarily round what issuers need. Digital credit score, by his definition, is liquid, clear, homogeneous, scalable, accessible, and carries no charge.
“We designed a digital instrument that is good for the investor,” he mentioned, framing STRC as a structural correction to the motivation downside embedded in personal markets.
He positioned this in historic context, arguing that most popular capital had a parallel in Nineteenth-century American railroads, the place it comprised 20 to 30% of institutional financing earlier than fading from use. Saylor mentioned Strategy has reintroduced the mannequin within the twenty first century, constructed on Bitcoin reasonably than railroad observe.
STRC’s $8.5 Billion dominance
The numbers he introduced on the Nakamoto Stage had been the middle of gravity for the speak. STRC reached about $8.5 billion in notional worth in 9 months, a determine that by itself would make it bigger than the whole present universe of monthly-paying most popular securities mixed.
He put annual progress for this system at round 350%, mentioned April inflows alone, when annualized, level towards $38 billion a 12 months, and described the product as sitting in “hypergrowth” with no clear finish in sight. Liquidity, he mentioned, has grown by an element of eight in 5 months.
“This is going viral,” he informed the viewers.
Saylor: STRC is accessible
A part of what drives that velocity, in Saylor’s telling, is accessibility. STRC trades on Nasdaq and is accessible to any retail investor, whereas most comparable structured credit score merchandise are both locked up in personal funds or restricted to institutional patrons.
He mentioned roughly 80% of STRC holders are retail, however that company treasuries and establishments are starting to comply with. Strategy’s personal information reveals STRC has financed the acquisition of roughly 77,000 BTC in 2026 year-to-date, ten occasions the web influx of all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs mixed throughout the identical interval.
The tax construction was one other promoting level. STRC dividends obtain return-of-capital therapy, which implies buyers can reinvest money flows with out paying atypical revenue tax on the complete distribution, letting returns compound over time.
Saylor closed with a imaginative and prescient that was larger than any single product. He mentioned there’s “a great thirst in the crypto economy to generate Bitcoin-backed yield” and that the chance is for 1,000 firms to construct their very own digital financial and yield devices on high of the identical framework.
“Every dollar that flows into digital credit will flow into digital capital,” he mentioned. “It will flow into the Bitcoin network. As it flows into the Bitcoin network, the price will increase.”
“We expect digital credit to drive the size of the bitcoin network… drive bitcoin to 10M a coin, make bitcoin a 2T dollar network til it grows higher, and give people an alternative to 20th century credit instruments” Saylor mentioned.
He described the motion as “a massively powerful, multi-generational wealth transfer” and mentioned his final objective is for Strategy’s mannequin to “power hundreds of millions of households with a high-yield savings account.”
