Michael Saylor, the visionary founder and executive chairman of Strategy, captivated the audience at Bitcoin 2026 on Tuesday, presenting a compelling argument for what he terms 'digital credit' and its revolutionary impact on global finance. Central to his keynote was STRC, Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, an instrument trading on Nasdaq near its $100 par value and offering an impressive 11.5% annualized monthly dividend. Saylor posited that this nine-month-old preferred stock has rapidly become the world's fastest-growing credit product, with its expansion only just beginning.

Saylor's discourse began with a fundamental premise: 'The world is built on capital. The world runs on credit.' In this framework, he positions Bitcoin as the ultimate 'ideal capital'—engineered, digital, portable, and historically superior to traditional assets. He highlighted Bitcoin’s approximately 38% annualized return over the past five years, starkly contrasting it with what he dismissively called the 'awful' performance of gold, the S&P 500, and real estate. This foundational understanding sets the stage for STRC's role within his digital economy vision.

STRC, according to Saylor, functions as the crucial credit layer built atop Bitcoin. It skillfully extracts Bitcoin's inherent volatility, channeling the excess returns to common equity holders, while providing investors seeking consistent cash flows—rather than direct price exposure—a 'comfortable ride.' Saylor drew a sharp distinction between this 'digital credit' and traditional private credit. He criticized private credit as illiquid, opaque, discrete, fee-laden, and issuer-centric. In contrast, he defined digital credit as liquid, transparent, homogeneous, scalable, accessible, and devoid of fees, explicitly stating, 'We designed a digital instrument that is good for the investor,' thereby rectifying the incentive problems prevalent in private markets. He also drew historical parallels to 19th-century American railroads, where preferred capital formed a significant portion of institutional financing before its decline, noting Strategy has reintroduced this model in the 21st century, anchored by Bitcoin.

The phenomenal growth of STRC underscored Saylor's presentation. In just nine months, STRC has achieved approximately $8.5 billion in notional value, a figure that, astonishingly, surpasses the entire existing universe of monthly-paying preferred securities combined. Saylor reported an annual growth rate for the program around 350%, with annualized April inflows pointing towards a staggering $38 billion per year, describing the product as being in a state of 'hypergrowth' with no foreseeable end. He emphasized that liquidity had surged eightfold in merely five months, proclaiming, 'This is going viral.'

A key driver of this rapid adoption, as Saylor elaborated, is STRC's unparalleled accessibility. Unlike most comparable structured credit products, which are confined to private funds or restricted to institutional buyers, STRC trades openly on Nasdaq, making it available to any retail investor. Roughly 80% of STRC holders are currently retail, though corporate treasuries and institutions are increasingly showing interest. Strategy's internal data reveals that STRC has facilitated the acquisition of approximately 77,000 BTC year-to-date in 2026, a volume ten times greater than the net inflow of all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs combined during the same period. Furthermore, its favorable tax structure, where STRC dividends receive return-of-capital treatment, allows investors to reinvest cash flows without immediate ordinary income tax, fostering long-term compounding of returns.

Saylor concluded his keynote with an expansive vision that extends far beyond a single product. He articulated 'a great thirst in the crypto economy to generate Bitcoin-backed yield,' foreseeing an immense opportunity for a thousand companies to develop their own digital monetary and yield instruments built upon the same framework. He firmly believes that 'Every dollar that flows into digital credit will flow into digital capital,' directly impacting the Bitcoin network and driving its price upward. Saylor projected that digital credit will propel the Bitcoin network to '10M a coin,' evolving it into a '$2T dollar network' and offering a superior alternative to 20th-century credit instruments. He characterized this movement as a 'massively powerful, multi-generational wealth transfer,' with Strategy’s ultimate goal being to 'power hundreds of millions of households with a high-yield savings account.'