Institutional money is flowing into Strategy's flagship preferred stock at a pace the company says is reshaping who owns it. Michael Saylor, the company's co-founder and executive chairman, disclosed in a July 24 post on X that STRC is now the largest holding in three leading U.S. preferred stock ETFs, with $756 million held across BlackRock's PFF, Virtus InfraCap's PFFA, and VanEck's PFXF. Saylor framed the concentration as proof that Strategy's "digital credit" products are entering institutional portfolios.
The three funds — BlackRock's iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF, Virtus InfraCap's U.S. Preferred Stock ETF, and VanEck's Preferred Securities ex Financials ETF — give investors indirect exposure to STRC alongside preferred securities issued by established U.S. financial institutions, rather than requiring them to buy the security directly or hold Bitcoin itself.
Retail Investors Are Heading for the Exit
Strategy CEO Phong Le added further detail in his own X post, reporting that the average STRC position held by institutions climbed 105% to $3.5 million between March and July, while retail investors' share of ownership fell from 78% to 71% over the same period. Some outlets initially described the jump as a 10% increase, but Le's figures corrected that to 105%, indicating the average institutional position more than doubled during the four-month stretch. The shift comes at an awkward moment for the security. STRC has been trading more than 10% below its $100 face value, which has pushed its current yield to roughly 13%, and Strategy has been adjusting the payout to try to keep the stock closer to par. The company currently pays STRC holders a 12% annual dividend in cash through two payments each month, and its own disclosures note that management adjusts the dividend rate monthly to encourage the stock to trade around its $100 par value.
Why the Discount Matters for Bitcoin Purchases
STRC isn't just another yield product — it's the primary lever Strategy has been pulling to keep buying Bitcoin. Trading below par has become an important constraint for the company because it relies on STRC sales to raise money for Bitcoin purchases; issuing new preferred shares at a large discount would secure less capital per share and weaken the economics of the transaction. Analysts have pushed back on suggestions that the stock has "depegged" in a stablecoin-like sense. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer addressed the confusion directly, arguing that a peg implies a fixed exchange relationship, unlike STRC's arrangement.
"Strategy's objective has been to support STRC's trading at a level near $100, not to guarantee it," Palmer wrote.
Related: Strategy Unveils 'Net Bitcoin Per Share' as Debt Load Grows
Not Everyone Reads the Data as Bullish
Longtime Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff offered a starkly different interpretation of the same numbers. Responding directly to Le's post, Schiff argued that the growing institutional presence doesn't necessarily signal confidence in Strategy or Bitcoin. He suggested retail holders may simply have sold their positions at a loss while professional investors entered trades designed to profit from differences between Strategy's securities, potentially purchasing STRC while shorting Strategy's common stock, MSTR, as a spread trade, or pairing long STRC positions with short Bitcoin exposure.
"None of those trades are bullish bets," Schiff wrote in his response.
The broader debate touches on a structural quirk of Strategy's business. The company has issued four series of preferred shares — STRK, STRF, STRD, and STRC — each with its own dividend rate, seniority and risk profile, giving investors fixed-income-style exposure to Strategy's balance sheet and Bitcoin strategy. STRC, nicknamed "Stretch" internally, has become the most closely watched of the four because of the sheer scale of capital now moving through it and its direct link to the company's Bitcoin-buying capacity.
What Comes Next
The institutional inflow figures were published just days ahead of Strategy's second-quarter earnings report, scheduled for July 30, when investors will get a fuller picture of how the company's capital structure and Bitcoin holdings have evolved. Chaired by Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor, Strategy holds 847,000 coins, or about 4% of the total supply of the cryptocurrency, a position the company has built almost entirely by tapping equity and preferred-stock markets rather than operating cash flow. Whether the newfound institutional appetite for STRC translates into fresh capital for Bitcoin purchases will likely depend on the stock climbing back toward its $100 par value — something Strategy has said it needs before issuing more shares on favorable terms.
