Digital Credit
MARKETSDEFINITION
Michael Saylor's term for Strategy's line of preferred-stock instruments — STRC, STRK, STRF, and STRD — that convert a bitcoin balance sheet into yield-bearing credit products for investors who want income exposure without holding bitcoin directly.
The pitch is aimed at a specific gap: most of the world's capital sits in bonds, savings accounts, and income funds — instruments built for yield, not volatility. Digital Credit repackages exposure to Strategy's bitcoin holdings into that familiar shape, paying a fixed or floating dividend backed by the balance sheet rather than requiring the buyer to hold bitcoin, manage a wallet, or accept its price swings directly.
STRC is the flagship series, designed to trade close to its $100 par value; STRK, STRF, and STRD vary in seniority, dividend structure, and conversion rights. On Strategy's Q2 2026 call, management described a deliberate strategy of consolidation rather than expansion — 11 instruments today, a plan to reduce that number over time, and an explicit rejection of newer, more exotic structures like selling volatility against the bitcoin position, which executives argued would fragment liquidity and undermine trust with market makers.
IN A SENTENCE
"STRC is Digital Credit's flagship — a way to get paid from Strategy's bitcoin without ever touching a wallet."
Key facts
Common questions
Is Digital Credit the same as owning bitcoin?
No. Holders own a preferred share of Strategy, not bitcoin itself — they get a dividend backed by the company's balance sheet and its bitcoin holdings, with the credit and market risk of the issuer layered on top.
Why does Strategy call it "Digital Credit" instead of just preferred stock?
Branding aimed at a non-crypto audience — the term borrows the vocabulary of traditional fixed income to market bitcoin exposure to the "99% of people who don't own bitcoin and won't buy it directly," in Saylor's own words.