How Digital Credit Assets like STRC and SATA Differ from Bitcoin or DAT Stocks

**Matt Cole** (0:00)
You know, the last thing I'll say is around the size of strategy. That's another debate that you see. A strategy is too big, it represents an existential risk to Bitcoin.
If you were to think about Bitcoin as a corporation, it's obviously not a corporation. If it was a corporation in the United States, someone that owns less than 4% of an asset is not even required by the SEC to report it. It's deemed immaterial from an ownership perspective. That is the current size of strategy to date. They will likely pass that 5% threshold soon, which would mean that they are a material owner, but in SEC terms, kind of the lowest standard for material ownership. So I don't think that strategy represents an existential risk for Bitcoin. If anything, I think that they will help make the ecosystem more anti-fragile.

**Laura Shin** (0:44)
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your No Hope resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin. Thanks for joining this live stream. Before we dive into today's discussion, let's hear a word from the sponsors that make this show possible. Fidelity has been investing in blockchain since 2014 They're not wondering if digital assets will shape the future. They're hiring the talent to help ensure they do. Explore opportunities today at crypto.fidelitycareers.com. Fidelity is an equal opportunity employer. This episode is brought to you by CAPE, America's privacy-first mobile carrier. Same premium service you'd expect from any other carrier, but designed so your number, your location, and your data actually stay yours. Get 33% off 6 months at cape.co.uk.
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Today's guest is Matt Cole, Chairman and CEO of Strive. Welcome, Matt. Hey, Laura.

**Matt Cole** (1:57)
How are you doing?

**Laura Shin** (1:59)
Good. Excited to have you here. The last day of trading last week was, as you called it, the most difficult day in the history of digital credit. STRC traded as low as $82.50 and SATA traded into the low 90s. This all comes on the heels of a month of drama in which the world of Bitcoin backed for petrol preferred stocks was the topic of discussion in many quarters of Crypto Twitter. We're going to dive into all of these events and the debates around all that. But before we do, why don't we just have you introduce your company, Strive, and your main product, SATA, and then explain a little bit about why you call that your main company a product, despite the fact that Strive is a Bitcoin debt.
Yeah.

**Matt Cole** (2:45)
Awesome. I will dive right into it.
So Strive right now is the seventh largest Bitcoin company we have. We're getting close to 20,000 Bitcoin. We're probably on a percentage basis, the fastest accumulator of Bitcoin in the industry.
Really, in the depths of the bear market, you've seen two Bitcoin treasury companies accumulating what I would say, at a meaningful scale, and its strategy in Strive, and notably both companies are the companies that have gone all in on digital credit. So it makes sense that in the depths of a bear market, that is the topic of discussion, of debate amongst the industry, and how even you and I came to have this conversation, of even potentially having this conversation was around some of the discussions and critiques of digital credit.
So you mentioned my tweet, and what you'll find with Strive is that we're a very transparent company. We put out podcasts. I'm not aware of another company that has weekly podcasts where we go out and discuss the risks, the opportunity, what we're seeing in the market. And so when you reference that tweet about me mentioning that last week was the most difficult week in digital credit, it was a continuation of that transparency. We're just out there, we're talking about what we're seeing in the industry. And our view on digital credit actually is that it solves one of the biggest problems in at least America, probably the world right now, which is the retirement crisis. And so my background, I came from a pension. I've been all in on helping solve the retirement crisis for everyday Americans. And what we see is that there is an income problem. And we've seen this for years, the 60-40 portfolio being dead. My view is that the 40% of portfolios of most people, the income portfolios, there's just not a lot of attractive options. And what you see when you go out and talk to everyday people is that there's an aversion to volatility.