This month, Strategy announced another massive purchase of 34,164 BTC (approximately $2.54bn), its third-largest acquisition to date. This latest move brings its holdings to approximately 815,061 BTC, or about 3.8% of the total circulating supply, pushing the company ahead of the BlackRock ETF (IBIT), which held approximately 800,000 BTC in early April.
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This breakthrough is all the more striking as, until now, many believed Strategy would be unable to catch up with BlackRock.
What makes this duel so compelling is not just the absolute size of the holdings, but what each camp represents. On one side, IBIT is literally "the people's vehicle": every bitcoin in the fund is there because an investor (via their advisor, a fund, or an individual account) chose to gain exposure. There is no single centralized decision, just the sum of millions of individual allocations.
On the other, Strategy embodies pure, unadulterated conviction. It is a single company, led by Saylor, making every decision to buy as much as possible, utilizing every available lever.
Saylor's Secret Weapons: The STRC
Saylor's true strength lies in his secret weapon: the STRC. This is not just a glamorous financial accessory; it is engineering at the service of his strategy. Instead of touting a "crypto" pitch, Strategy offers something more familiar: a perpetual preferred stock paying approximately 11.5% per year (roughly $0.958 per share each month), designed to trade near $100 par value. This high, regular yield transforms the argument into a "yield pitch" rather than one based on bitcoin volatility. Most importantly, this dividend is treated for tax purposes as a Return of Capital (100% ROC), which defers taxation to the lower capital gains rate.
The mechanism is clever: as soon as the STRC share price deviates too far from $100, Strategy adjusts the dividend to bring it back towards par. As long as new investors continue to buy STRC, they fund both the purchase of new bitcoins and the dividend payments. In practice, Saylor segments his investor base in two: some receive a quasi-secured income (the preferred stock), while others capture all the upside (and volatility) associated with bitcoin via the common stock. By offering these two profiles (annuity and bitcoin exposure), Strategy significantly broadens its audience beyond just Bitcoin believers.
The catch? This structure relies on a mechanic that only appears stable as long as confidence remains intact. As long as new investors agree to buy STRC, Strategy can fund both its dividends and its bitcoin purchases; but if appetite dries up sustainably, the entire edifice becomes more fragile. Behind the apparent security of the yield, the underlying asset remains bitcoin, an inherently volatile asset: in the event of a sharp, lasting decline, the promise of "quasi-secured" income could quickly appear less solid than it seems. There is also a risk of increasing dependence on refinancing: if Strategy must continually adjust the dividend to maintain the stock at around $100, it could eventually drive up the cost of capital and weigh on the entire structure. Added to this are risks of economic dilution between different investor classes, the risk of product misinterpretation by savers attracted primarily by yield, and regulatory or tax risks: if the favorable Return of Capital treatment were to be modified, a portion of the STRC's appeal would immediately vanish.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs: Mass Distribution
BlackRock's strength with IBIT lies elsewhere: in distribution. Its advantage resides in its ability to integrate the IBIT ETF into model portfolios, mutual funds, and retirement allocations that manage trillions in existing capital. An investor no longer has to figure out how to buy bitcoin: they can simply find IBIT in their standard model portfolio. IBIT has, in the process, become BlackRock's most profitable product.
As a reminder, since January 2024, the US SEC has authorized the listing of "spot" Bitcoin ETFs, and several providers (BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK, etc.) have launched a dozen similar products. Total assets under management (AUM) for these exchange-traded products are nearing $99bn (approximately 6.5% of circulating BTC), with $60bn housed in IBIT.
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But a thirteenth player has entered the market. On April 7, Morgan Stanley launched its Wall Street-listed financial product, dubbed the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT). It is the first major US bank to offer a spot Bitcoin ETF alongside 12 asset managers. With $34m in flows recorded on its first day of trading, the American bank achieved "its best first day of trading for an ETF," stated Amy Oldenburg, Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Morgan Stanley. Ten days later, the ETF shows $155m in assets under management.
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The strong point of MSBT? It offers one of the lowest management fee rates on the market at 0.14%, compared to 0.25% for BlackRock's IBIT. The ETF's parent company (Morgan Stanley Investment Management) can also rely on its vast wealth management network: approximately 16,000 financial advisors were already internally recommending an allocation of 2% to 4% of portfolios to crypto-assets. Until now, Morgan Stanley clients accessed Bitcoin ETFs via third-party funds; now, the bank can direct them toward its own MSBT, which thus offers an "in-house placement" for institutional and private investors seeking bitcoin. The chosen custodians (Coinbase and BNY Mellon) ensure the custody of the underlying bitcoin, while MSBT replicates bitcoin's performance via the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark.
Ultimately, the real battle may no longer be fought solely on the price of bitcoin, but on the best way to package, distribute, and finance it.
Between Saylor's radical conviction, BlackRock's industrial might, and the entry of major banks like Morgan Stanley, bitcoin continues to gain ground in the corridors of traditional finance.
