MicroStrategy lifted the annualized dividend on its Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC) to 11.50%, effective March 1, 2026, as it continued using capital raises to buy more Bitcoin while its common stock (MSTR) remained under pressure during a multi-month BTC pullback. The move reinforces the company’s playbook: keep the Bitcoin accumulation engine running by making the preferred yield compelling enough to attract steady income capital.
The March rate was a 25 bp increase from February’s 11.25% and marked the seventh consecutive monthly step-up since STRC launched in July 2025. Because the dividend resets monthly and is designed to keep STRC trading near its $100 par value, the rising coupon functions like a dial MicroStrategy can turn to support demand and stabilize pricing. That’s the theory: if the preferred stays “sticky” around par, the company preserves a reliable funding channel.
Stretch Dividend Rate increased by 25 bps to 11.50% for March 2026. $STRC pic.twitter.com/G52tLsypsH
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) March 1, 2026
What MicroStrategy raised and how it deployed the cash
MicroStrategy sold 71,590 STRC shares, generating $7.1 million in net proceeds, and sold 1,730,563 MSTR shares for $229.9 million. It then used the proceeds to buy 3,015 Bitcoin for $204.1 million, at an average price of $67,700 per coin. This sequence shows the operational loop in action: issue preferred and equity, then redeploy into BTC while the market is still digesting the drawdown.
At the equity level, MSTR’s tape has been weak. The stock was described as extending an eight-month losing streak, with a year-to-date drop of about 14.77%, roughly tracking a reported ~24% drawdown in Bitcoin over the same period. That correlation is not incidental—MicroStrategy is effectively a levered expression of BTC exposure, and when Bitcoin slips, the company’s financing optics tighten. The pressure showed up in valuation mechanics too, with MSTR’s premium to net asset value (mNAV) compressing to about 1.09 by early March 2026.
Why STRC is central and where the stress points are
STRC sits inside MicroStrategy’s financing architecture as an income-oriented instrument backed by a Bitcoin-heavy collateral story. Company disclosures describe the structure as supported by an overcollateralized BTC pool, cited at roughly a 5-to-1 collateral ratio. That framing is meant to reassure buyers that the preferred’s “credit story” is tied to a large collateral base—but it also concentrates the support in the same asset whose volatility drives the broader strategy.
This is where sustainability questions come in. The variable rate is reset monthly and sits within a SOFR-linked framework, but the company still retains discretion in how aggressively it uses the dividend lever to maintain market appetite. If Bitcoin weakens further or if MSTR’s mNAV compresses below 1, MicroStrategy’s ability to raise capital efficiently could deteriorate, forcing it to slow purchases or reprice the preferred’s yield dynamics. Critics highlighted that the combination of high yield and ongoing issuance can be structurally risky for long-term preferred holders, especially if the strategy depends on continuously attracting new capital under tightening market conditions.
MicroStrategy is effectively running two objectives in parallel: keep accumulating Bitcoin through preferred and equity issuance, and keep the yield proposition attractive enough to fund that accumulation at scale. The clean monitoring framework is the one the text itself points to—Bitcoin price action and MSTR’s premium to NAV—because both directly govern the company’s capacity to finance purchases and sustain STRC’s yield profile without destabilizing the structure.