Compass Investments

– In an analyst report filed on May 27, Pine Analytics outlined its insights analyzing BTC purchases by STRC and ETFs. According to the company, between March 9 and March 15, 2026, STRC’s share sales in the market totaled $1.18 billion, and these funds were used to purchase 17,994 BTC at an average cost of $70,946.

In the same week, all 12 U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs raised a combined $763 million, indicating that STRC single-handedly outperformed the entire BTC ETF sector.

However, as Pine analysts emphasized, the more significant aspect was the structural difference: ETF flows tend to be bidirectional, while STRC’s are unidirectional. For example, on Jan. 29, net outflows from ETFs totaled $817.8 million, meaning that authorized participants sold bitcoins in the market to meet redemption requests. STRC has no such mechanism in place. When owners sell shares, it happens on the stock market, and Strategy never touches its bitcoin reserve.

STRC is not designed to pay dividends. It’s designed to buy bitcoin, market watchers said.

Dividends are the cost of keeping the mechanism running.

Moreover, they noted that every dollar invested in STRC stock purchases stimulates demand for bitcoin, while no STRC sales can create buying interest in BTC. This is the key structural difference: ETFs reduce Bitcoin’s liquidity, while STRC makes it physically impossible.

The report also mentions that Strategy can only issue new STRC shares with a market value at or above $100. And all funds raised above this $100 base price are directly used to buy bitcoin. Therefore, the issuance of new shares is completely dependent on the stability of the exchange rate.

But this relationship goes deeper than just the mechanics of par, because in leveraged markets, lower volatility leads to lower “costs, which in turn opens up more leverage per unit, thereby attracting more institutional funds into such positions.

If we look at STRC, since its launch, the 30-day moving volatility has fallen from 18% to 2% . This means that any organization holding this instrument can increase its share. Increasing capital means increasing ATM issuance, buying bitcoins and strengthening Strategy’s balance sheet, which in turn will contribute to STRC’s stability. It’s essentially a self-perpetuating cycle.

According to current data from Strategy’s website, the 30-day historical volatility is around 4.2% , and STRC’s price is slightly below par at $99.47. Such a low figure matters, and the BitcoinQuant chart presented in Pine’s follow-up piece shows noticeable pressure on the preferential series since March, and the firm summarizes: “It doesn’t look very encouraging.

This vulnerability can have serious repercussions, as it did earlier this year when a routine post-dividend drop halted issuance and reduced weekly BTC purchases from 17,994 to just 1,031. And a real credit event where the peg is broken and remains so would shut down the ATM program completely and eliminate one of the most significant systemic bids in the bitcoin market.