Spot Bitcoin ETFs were supposed to be the main event. Matt Cole thinks they were just the opening act.
The CEO of Strive, a structured finance company focused on Bitcoin treasuries trading under the ticker ASST, is making a bold claim: “digital credit,” the umbrella term for yield-bearing preferred equity instruments issued by Bitcoin treasury companies, represents a larger opportunity than the ETF wave that dominated crypto headlines over the past two years. Cole pegs the addressable market at $3 trillion, roughly 1% of the $300 trillion global credit market.
What digital credit actually is
Bitcoin treasury companies, the ones hoarding BTC on their balance sheets, are now issuing preferred equity that pays dividends funded by their Bitcoin operations. Instead of just buying and holding Bitcoin, investors can buy structured products that generate income from those holdings.
Strive’s flagship product, SATA, delivers a 12.75% annualized dividend with daily payouts. Strategy and Semler’s competing product, STRC, yields approximately 11.5%. In a world where US Treasuries hover in the low single digits, double-digit yields from Bitcoin-backed instruments are going to turn heads.
