Strategy’s Michael Saylor targets $3T in tokenized digital credit

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Strategy’s Michael Saylor targets $3T in tokenized digital credit

The executive chairman wants to carve out a chunk of the $300 trillion global credit market using Bitcoin-backed preferred stock instruments

by
John Chen

Sep. 29, 2026

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Michael Saylor has never been accused of thinking small. The executive chairman of Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, is now setting his sights on the global credit market, a $300 trillion behemoth that makes even the most inflated crypto market caps look quaint. His target: capturing at least 1% of it, or roughly $3 trillion, through what he calls “digital credit” instruments backed by Bitcoin.

The pitch is straightforward, even if the ambition is not. Saylor argues that digital credit can replace a meaningful slice of the traditional credit market by offering investors low volatility and attractive returns, all while being denominated in or collateralized by Bitcoin. In more optimistic projections, he’s floated capturing 5% to 10% of the market, which would translate to somewhere between $15 trillion and $30 trillion.

The STRC machine

At the center of this strategy is STRC, Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock. STRC offers an annualized variable dividend of approximately 11.5%, paid out monthly, with cited volatility of around 2%. The key engineering trick is overcollateralization. By backing these instruments with significantly more Bitcoin than the face value of the securities, Strategy aims to insulate holders from Bitcoin’s notorious price swings.

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STRC isn’t flying solo either. Strategy has built out an entire preferred equity capital structure that includes STRK, STRD, and STRF alongside STRC. Together, these instruments have scaled to between $8 billion and $11 billion in total issuance within roughly 9 to 12 months of their introduction.

Underpinning all of this is Strategy’s massive Bitcoin treasury. As of late September 2026, the company held approximately 847,666 BTC.

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Tokenization meets regulation

What makes Saylor’s latest push especially notable is its intersection with regulatory developments. A September 2026 SEC innovation exemption now allows tokenized trading of both STRC and MSTR securities through decentralized finance platforms. The framework operates within a regulatory sandbox, meaning the SEC is watching closely while giving the experiment room to breathe.

For Strategy, this means its digital credit instruments can trade on blockchain rails, potentially 24/7, with settlement times measured in minutes rather than the two-day standard in traditional markets.

What Saylor is really betting on

Strip away the financial engineering and Saylor’s thesis rests on a simple premise: a meaningful portion of the world’s credit demand can be met more efficiently by instruments that use Bitcoin as their foundation rather than sovereign debt, corporate bonds, or mortgage-backed securities. He categorizes Bitcoin as “digital capital” and positions STRC-style products as “digital credit,” essentially the yield layer built on top of that capital base.

The 11.5% annualized yield is the carrot. In a world where traditional investment-grade corporate bonds offer mid-single-digit returns, a double-digit yield with claimed low volatility is going to attract capital. The question is whether the overcollateralization structure can hold up during a severe Bitcoin downturn, the kind where prices drop 50% or more in a matter of weeks.

Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.