On February 25, 2026, Anchorage Digital announced that it holds perpetual preferred shares STRC issued by Strategy on its own balance sheet and entered into a strategic alliance with the latter. This action was quickly amplified and interpreted by industry media. As the first federally regulated digital asset bank in the United States, Anchorage's asset allocation and cooperative paths are often seen as signals of the intersection between traditional finance and the crypto world. Choosing to use STRC as a cooperation link instead of conventional equity or tokens is not just an investment but resembles an experiment concerning "what financial medium connects Bitcoin with corporate balance sheets." Why Anchorage and Strategy have placed their bets on this hybrid security has become the core issue of the current narrative.
Why Regulated Crypto Banks Are Eyeing STRC
● Regulatory Qualification and Business Positioning: Anchorage Digital is the first federally regulated digital asset bank in the United States, a status that requires it to serve not only crypto-native institutions but also connect with traditional financial institutions that have stringent compliance requirements. Its core business revolves around institutional custody, trading, clearing, and related banking services, playing a key role in the compliance infrastructure of crypto assets. Each product choice and partnership for Anchorage often needs to achieve a delicate balance between regulation, risk, and innovation.
● Past Preferences and Current Bets: From Anchorage's consistent partnership preferences, it typically favors assets and partners that have clear compliance paths and can serve institutional clients, rather than chasing high volatility and high uncertainty short-term opportunities. The decision to include STRC issued by Strategy in its balance sheet continues this logic of "anchored in institutional demand," appearing more like a bet on a structured equity tool that can be understood by traditional institutions and embedded within existing risk control frameworks, rather than merely speculating for price elasticity.
● The Symbolic Meaning of Including in the Balance Sheet: Anchorage holds Strategy's equity in the form of perpetual preferred shares STRC instead of in token form and accounts for it on its balance sheet. This accounting and structural arrangement implies an implicit endorsement of asset quality. For Strategy, this means its business model and asset structure have passed the internal audit threshold of a federally regulated digital asset bank; for the market, this is interpreted as Anchorage recognizing the sustainability and compliance potential of Strategy in the arena of "connecting Bitcoin and corporate balance sheets."
The Arrival of Perpetual Preferred Shares: The Transformation of Traditional Tools in Crypto
● Popular Interpretation of Hybrid Characteristics: In the context of traditional finance, perpetual preferred shares are a hybrid security that neither participates fully in corporate governance like common stock nor has a definite maturity date like traditional bonds. They usually have fixed or predetermined income characteristics, with a higher repayment priority than common stock, while their "perpetual" attribute allows them to possess both capital and debt-like qualities within accounting and regulatory frameworks, making them widely used for capital structure optimization and regulatory capital supplementation in capital-intensive industries like banking and insurance.
● Innovation of STRC in the Crypto Context: STRC, as Strategy's issued perpetual preferred stock, breaks the conventional path of "issuing tokens for financing" as it is introduced into the crypto narrative. Compared to common token models, STRC appears in a securities form, making it easier to fit into the compliance frameworks of traditional capital markets and distancing itself from purely token-economy governance and incentive mechanisms. This attempt allows Strategy to articulate its risk and return structure to traditional institutional capital using a more familiar tool language.
● Structural Choice Logic Under Risk and Return Allocation: Without disclosing specific terms of STRC, it is only possible to infer the mutual motivation of Anchorage and Strategy from a structural perspective. For Anchorage, perpetual preferred shares have a higher chance of achieving a balance between predictable returns and measurable risks compared to common stock or highly volatile tokens; for Strategy, this tool helps to attract long-term funds supporting strategic direction without significantly diluting common stock control. Choosing STRC as a cooperation vehicle reflects a design approach seeking a middle ground between "capital efficiency" and "regulatory friendliness."
From "Bitcoin to Corporations" to Institutional Infrastructure Game
● Narrative Direction of Strategy: From publicly available information, Strategy is building its business vision around "bringing Bitcoin into corporate balance sheets," hoping to allow corporate clients to hold, manage, and utilize Bitcoin on their balance sheets more conveniently, transforming it from a speculative target into a manageable asset class. This narrative attempts to replicate traditional corporate asset allocation logic for foreign exchange, gold, and even government bonds, packaging Bitcoin within a familiar financial and governance framework.
● The Bridging Role of STRC Between Corporate Services and Capital Markets: As a perpetual preferred share, STRC anchors Strategy's business prospects and cash flow expectations on one hand, while appearing on the balance sheets of institutions like Anchorage in a securitized form, thus becoming a bridge connecting "enterprise-level Bitcoin services" and "capital market financing capabilities." It allows Strategy to communicate its story to institutional investors in a manner closer to Wall Street grammar, rather than relying solely on industry token issuance and liquidity narratives.
● Anchorage's Infrastructure Entry Point: As both a custodian and a regulated digital asset bank, Anchorage's holding of STRC and formation of a strategic alliance gives it the opportunity to play multiple roles in the chain of "Bitcoin entering corporate balance sheets": it can provide Bitcoin custody and settlement services for corporate clients while deeply binding its business development with Strategy through holding STRC. This combination signifies that Anchorage is no longer just a "neutral infrastructure," but is actively involved in the upstream design of enterprise-level Bitcoin adoption via its equity links.
A Delicate Compromise Between Crypto Natives and Wall Street Tastes
● Risk Preference Differences Between Securitized Products and Token Economy: Traditional institutions prefer securitized products—be it equity, bonds, or convertible securities—the key is having clear terms where rights and obligations are fully described by legal and accounting standards; the crypto-native community, on the other hand, tends to quickly experiment with incentive structures through token economic design, showing higher tolerance for price volatility and term flexibility. The natural divide in risk preference and product understanding paths between the two is one reason why institutional capital has been slow to enter crypto-native assets on a large scale.
● The "Translator" Role of Perpetual Preferred Shares: The perpetual preferred share model represented by STRC is closer on the levels of regulatory compliance, accounting treatment, and yield structure to the paradigms familiar to Wall Street. Even though specific terms have not been disclosed yet, in legal form it remains a traditional security, making it easier to be included in institutional compliance checklists and risk control models. This structure acts, to some extent, as a "translator": converting the business models of the crypto world into risk-return curves that traditional finance can understand, rather than requiring institutions to adapt to a completely unfamiliar token syntax.
● Could it Become a Demonstration Template for "Quasi-Security Structures": While the cooperation between Anchorage and Strategy has not disclosed its scale and terms publicly, from a structural perspective, it indeed provides a reference path for subsequent projects—using hybrid securities rather than tokens as a vehicle to connect traditional funding with crypto business. If this model performs well in regulatory review, capital market acceptance, and business synergy, more crypto projects might prioritize "quasi-security structures" over single token issuance when approaching institutional financing, shifting the focus of innovation from purely token economics to the design of capital tools that are friendly to legal and accounting frameworks.
How the Market Narrates Itself Under Information Opaqueness
● The Boundaries of Public Information: So far, the public information about STRC is limited to the fact that it is perpetual preferred shares issued by Strategy, while specific terms (including coupons, repayment priorities, potential conversion rights, etc.) and issuance size have not been disclosed. Similarly, the specific business content of the strategic cooperation between Anchorage and Strategy has not been officially elaborated, leaving outsiders only to confirm the framework expression of "strategic alliance" without being able to reconstruct the fine commercial and profit distribution mechanisms.
● The Necessary Distinction Between Fact and Rumor: Surrounding this event, the market has seen statements such as disclosures through the CEO's personal account and "Bitcoin for Corporations is $STRC" on social media; however, these fall under the category of unverified information and are insufficient to be regarded as final conclusions. In the absence of official documents and complete disclosures, using such content as a basis for investment decisions is akin to treating second-hand narratives as first-hand facts, requiring investors to actively differentiate between "confirmed facts" and "market retellings/secondary interpretations" when reading news and social media.
● Emotionally Driven Pricing Paths Fueled by Reputation Premium: In the absence of details, the market often fills in gaps with straightforward narratives. One direct path is that Anchorage's reputation premium is indiscriminately attributed to STRC and Strategy, creating a linear imagination that "entry of a regulated crypto bank equals asset safety and promising prospects." This emotional pricing based on brand and identity may amplify market volatility in the short term but may not match the actual terms and business performance disclosed later. Investors need to be aware of the risk of "substituting reputation for due diligence."
A Small Bet or a Dress Rehearsal for a New Paradigm
This time, Anchorage's holding of STRC and its alliance with Strategy has dual significance on a trend level: on one hand, it is an innovative product attempt centered around the tool of perpetual preferred shares, building a more compliant and measurable capital structure for "bringing Bitcoin into corporate balance sheets" through hybrid securities; on the other hand, Anchorage, in its capacity as a regulated bank, publicly embraces this structure on its balance sheet, which itself expresses a stance on "how to package crypto businesses in traditional finance." Looking ahead, the application of hybrid securities such as perpetual preferred shares in the crypto space may evolve along three paths—more refined term designs, stricter information disclosures, and tighter regulatory dialogues, providing regulatory agencies with new imaginative space and opening a new toolbox of structural tools for project parties and institutional investors. In this process, while focusing on grand narratives is certainly important, what truly dictates the distribution of risks and returns are still those seemingly dull terms details and the authenticity and completeness of information sources, which warrant continued tracking and review.
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