Independent research on the income being built on bitcoin.

Digital credit, digital equity and digital capital, read from the filings for RIAs, family offices and emerging managers. Where the dividend comes from, how far bitcoin can fall before it matters, and when to walk away.

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Every figure dated and sourced. Reader-funded, not issuer-sponsored.

A new asset class, built for a new monetary regime

Most clients want a diversified portfolio and income they can live on, and for some, 30 percent or even half of the portfolio is expected to pay. The traditional menu for that money has been thin. In October 2026 the 10-year Treasury yielded about 5.24 percent, and a top-bracket client kept about 3.1 percent after tax.

Meanwhile the dollar has been in structural debasement since the end of the Second World War: the persistent tendency of a highly indebted monetary system to increase nominal claims faster than the supply of genuinely scarce assets. Income that pays less than the growth of money may hold its number and still lose its purchasing power.

Digital credit is the income layer of a new financial stack built on bitcoin: perpetual preferred stock paying 8 to 15 percent on a $100 stated amount, senior to the common, some of it every business day. About $16 billion of it exists. Two years ago none did.

Bar chart: stated rates of SATS 15%, SATA 13%, STRC 12%, STRF and STRD 10%, STRK 8% and the 10-year Treasury at 5.24%, against U.S. money growth of about 6.7% a year

Grouped bars showing each instrument's stated rate, its rate after consumer inflation, and its rate after money growth; the 10-year Treasury turns negative after money growth

Real returns, not nominal returns

The number on the statement is nominal. What it buys is real. Measured against the growth of money, the 10-year Treasury loses ground before tax; digital credit, at its stated rates, clears the line.

Instrument	Stated rate	After money growth
SATS	15%	+8.3%
SATA	13%	+6.3%
STRC	12%	+5.3%
10-year Treasury	5.24%	−1.5%

Pre-tax, at stated rates on $100, before any change in price. No dividend is guaranteed, and our research is as much about how these instruments can fall as about what they pay.

Run your own numbers

A stated dividend rate, your purchase price, your tax rate and the growth of money. The math behind every yield figure in the report, on your inputs.

Instrument

Stated dividend rate

% on a $100 stated amount

Your purchase price

$100.00per share

Allocation

Your tax rate on this income

Growth of money

% a year (U.S., since 1970)

10-year Treasury yield

Cash yield at your price

15.00%

$15.00 a year per share

Income on your allocation

$37,500

$3,125 a month, before tax

After tax

9.45%

$23,625 a year

Above the growth of money, after tax

+2.75%

What the income keeps in purchasing power

Dividends needed to recover a 10% price drop

8.0 months

At the stated rate, dividends held

Same dollars in the 10-year Treasury

$13,100

a year before tax, 5.24% stated

Digital credit against the Treasury, step by step

SATS10-year Treasury

Illustrative math on stated dividend rates. No dividend is guaranteed; STRC and SATA rates are variable and reset by the issuer. Tax treatment depends on the issuer's earnings and profits and on your situation; confirm with a tax adviser. Price changes are excluded except where shown. Not advice, and not a forecast.

What the research covers

The complete white paper runs an opening chapter, seventeen parts and thirty-one charts, with an executive summary for subscribers. A numbered weekly issue follows every Monday.

Price-yield curves for every digital credit instrument

Bitcoin price at which each instrument stops being fully backed

Length of past bitcoin bear markets compared with each issuer's cash runway

How the dividend is actually funded, and what has to keep happening
The issuers' record under stress in 2026
How digital credit differs from bonds and bank preferreds, with the full risk register
Worked tax examples, sizing, IPS and client disclosure language

Start with the free research

The Free Primer

What digital credit is, how it works, where it breaks, and why it matters for advisors and their clients. Eleven pages. Enter your email and we’ll send you a confirmation link. Click it and the primer opens right here on the site.

A Sample Weekly Issue

One complete Monday issue: the scoreboard, the yield table, the backing points and the trigger check.

How far can bitcoin fall before each instrument is impaired

Every bitcoin-backed preferred has a bitcoin price at which it stops being fully backed, after every claim ahead of it and net of the issuer's cash. We call it the backing point. It is the whole risk conversation in one number, and it moves every week as the companies buy bitcoin, issue preferred and spend or rebuild cash. These are the lines on the October filings; subscribers get them every Monday with the trigger check and the runway.

Instrument	Seat in the stack	Stated rate	Fully backed down to	Fall from $81,000
SATSStrive	Junior to SATA, ahead of the common. Cumulative.	15% fixed	$40,400Priced October 15; closes October 20	−50%
SATAStrive	Senior-most claim; no debt above it. Cumulative, compounding.	13% variable	$31,800About $23,400 once SATS is issued beneath it	−61%
STRDStrategy	Junior-most preferred. Non-cumulative: a skipped dividend is gone.	10% fixed	$17,600	−78%
STRKStrategy	Behind the converts and the senior preferreds. Cumulative.	8% fixed	$16,000	−80%
STRF · STRC · STREStrategy	Senior preferreds, on parity with each other, behind about $6.7B of convertible notes. Cumulative.	10% · 12% variable · 10% (euro)	$14,300	−82%

Backing point = (claims senior to and including the instrument, at stated amount, less cash and the dividend reserve) ÷ bitcoin held. Strive from the October 13 filings with SATS as priced ($700 million stated, net proceeds beyond the reserve buying bitcoin); Strategy holdings of October 11 and series sizes from strategy.com on October 16; holdings valued at $82,500 bitcoin on the filings; distances measured from $81,000 on October 18. Price breaks earlier than backing does: in June 2026 the two leading instruments fell 20 to 29 percent below par with coverage still comfortable. Author's calculations at stated rates; not a forecast, not advice.

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Questions advisors ask

The short answers. The full thirty-five, with the math, the investment committee memo and the IPS clause, are in The Hard Questions, included with every subscription.

Is bitcoin paying the dividend?

No. Bitcoin pays nothing. The dividend is paid from a cash reserve and from the company issuing more preferred or common stock, with bitcoin sales as the last resort. The bet underneath is that bitcoin appreciates faster than the coupon. That is the sentence to say to every client before the yield.

Isn't paying dividends with new issuance a Ponzi?

A Ponzi has no assets and no disclosed funding. Here the bitcoin pile, the cash reserve and the funding order are all public and filed weekly. The test is two ratios: coverage (bitcoin value over preferred at par) and reserve months. When both are improving the structure is working; when par breaks and the reserve drains, it is running in reverse. We track both for every instrument.

How is this different from a bond?

No maturity, so your exit is selling to someone else. Legally equity, so a missed dividend is a board decision, not a default. Funded by issuance, not cash flow. And every instrument is a claim on one company's pile of one volatile asset. It pays like high-yield credit and should be sized like crypto.

Does it replace the bond allocation?

No. In the June 2026 drawdown the leading instruments fell 20 to 29 percent below par in the same week equities fell. Ballast it is not. It can sit next to the income core as a higher-yielding satellite, counted against the client's bitcoin exposure.

Bitcoin is volatile. How far can it fall before this is impaired?

Each instrument has its own line. Net of the issuer's cash and after every claim ahead of it, SATS is fully backed down to about $40,400 bitcoin and SATA to about $31,800 today (about $23,400 once SATS sits beneath it); Strategy's most junior series, STRD, to about $17,600. From $81,000 those are falls of 50 to 82 percent; the table above has every series. On the bitcoin alone, with no credit for cash, the lines are tighter: Strive's whole preferred stack is covered down to a fall of about 38 percent once SATS is issued. The market prices the break earlier than the math does, which is what June showed.

Is my $100 safe?

No one guarantees it. On the variable-rate series the issuer defends par by raising the rate and buying back shares; on the fixed-rate series there is no defense at all. Par is the ceiling: buy below it, expect a break in every bitcoin drawdown, and hold only what you can carry through one.

What about taxes?

Both issuers expect distributions to be treated as return of capital to the extent they are not paid from earnings and profits, which both issuers have said they expect to be limited. That is a materially different after-tax outcome for a taxable client, and no advantage at all in a tax-exempt account. Model both cases with the client's tax adviser every year.

Who should not own it?

Anyone who heard "13 percent paid daily" and nothing else. Anyone who needs the income to be stable in the week their equities fall. Anyone holding it in a tax-exempt account as a bond substitute. And any client whose adviser has not read the series terms.

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The Digital Credit Report is published by Hydra Wealth Advisors LLC, an investment adviser registered with the State of New York; registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Research publications are impersonal and are not advice tailored to any reader; subscribers are not advisory clients. Nothing in this publication is paid for by any issuer. The author may hold positions in securities discussed, as disclosed in each issue. Stated dividend rates are not guaranteed, and past results do not guarantee future results. Form ADV Part 2A and Part 2B are available here and on request.

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