A new kind of Bitcoin Treasury Company has emerged—one designed not only to accumulate Bitcoin, but to outperform it.
This week during Bitcoin For Corporations at Strategy World 2025, Strive Asset Management announced it is combining with NASDAQ-listed Asset Entities (ASST) to become the first publicly traded asset manager-led Bitcoin Treasury Company.
But this isn’t just another balance sheet allocation.
Strive is industrializing the Bitcoin treasury playbook—introducing a multi-engine model that leverages tax advantages, capital markets, and balance sheet engineering to drive one clear outcome: “Maximize Bitcoin per share. Outperform Bitcoin over time.”
Bitcoin as the Hurdle Rate
Strive doesn’t treat Bitcoin as a hedge or an opportunistic buy—it treats it as a benchmark. A capital hurdle rate.
Every capital allocation decision, investment project, or acquisition must meet one standard: will it outperform Bitcoin over the long run?
If not, it doesn’t deserve capital.
This transforms Bitcoin from a passive asset into an active filter—a structural disciplining force embedded into treasury operations and governance. It reframes the role of a corporate treasury from reactive to sovereign: hold the hardest money available, and only deploy it when returns are provably superior.
Strive’s Three-Engine Model for Bitcoin Accumulation
Strive’s approach is not dependent on a single strategy—it’s a multi-layered framework engineered for Bitcoin scalability and capital efficiency.
1. Section 351 Tax-Deferred Bitcoin-for-Equity Swap
Strive is operationalizing Section 351 of the U.S. tax code, which allows accredited Bitcoin holders to contribute BTC to the company in exchange for equity—without triggering capital gains taxes.
This is more than a tax efficiency tool. It creates a stable, long-term-aligned shareholder base, as Bitcoin contributors become equity holders without the friction of liquidation. It also positions Strive as a high-trust gateway for Bitcoin-native capital to enter public markets structurally, not speculatively.
2. Cash-at-a-Discount Acquisition Strategy
Over $30B worth of U.S. public companies currently trade below net cash.
Strive is targeting these companies—acquiring them below intrinsic value, unlocking trapped fiat reserves, and converting them into Bitcoin. This approach is both self-funding and accretive to BTC/share, turning stranded capital into productive reserve assets.
It’s not just accumulation—it’s balance sheet reformation.
3. Institutional Leverage with Risk Controls
Strive brings institutional fixed income and derivatives expertise to the Bitcoin treasury model. This includes:
- Options overlays to limit downside risk
- Prepaid forwards for synthetic BTC exposure
- Fixed income strategies to extract yield and recycle capital into Bitcoin
The goal: increase Bitcoin exposure while maintaining downside protection and avoiding shareholder dilution. This is not leverage for the sake of leverage—it’s engineered torque with institutional risk architecture behind it.
Reverse Merger for Immediate Capital Access
Rather than pursue a traditional IPO, Strive executed a reverse merger with Asset Entities, gaining immediate access to the public markets—and a live $S-3 shelf registration.
This means they can raise capital at will, with speed and flexibility, using equity or debt—crucial in Bitcoin cycles where market windows are short and supply dynamics shift fast.
As Matt Cole, Strive’s CEO, said on stage: “Most companies spend 12–24 months preparing to access capital. We’re already operating at scale.”
Integrated Attention Funnel and Distribution
Strive also inherits something most financial institutions lack: a native digital media stack.
Through Asset Entities, the company now controls a social content and distribution engine with:
- 2M+ followers
- A 200K+ Discord community
- Over 1B+ engagements in the last 90 days—all with no paid advertising
This isn’t just marketing—it’s an organic education and investor activation loop. It allows Strive to shape shareholder narratives, drive investor inflow, and reinforce its treasury model through content—not commercials.
From Activist Capital to Bitcoin-First Treasury Governance
Strive already made a name challenging ESG and DEI mandates, re-centering shareholder value in the capital markets. Now it’s applying that same governance philosophy to corporate treasuries.
Through its voting power and investment positions, Strive plans to pressure portfolio companies to allocate reserves to Bitcoin—or explain, in clear economic terms, why they continue holding inflationary fiat.
This is Bitcoin as a shareholder governance vector—not just a balance sheet line item.
Not Replicating Strategy—Evolving It
Strive is often compared to Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which pioneered the public company Bitcoin treasury model.
But while Strategy remains the category leader, Strive is extending the category:
- Section 351 exchanges to onboard Bitcoin tax efficiently
- Roll-up acquisitions of cash-rich, underperforming public companies
- Institutional-grade overlays to avoid dilution and maximize per-share accumulation
It’s a faster, more capital-flexible, and risk-mitigated design—built to outperform Bitcoin on a per-share basis.
A U.S. Advantage—and a Global Signal
Strive’s use of Section 351 also reveals something strategic: the U.S. is the only jurisdiction in the world that currently allows Bitcoin to be contributed to a public company tax-deferred.
That makes the U.S. a regulatory onramp for institutional-scale Bitcoin monetization—and Strive the first to exploit it at scale.
This positions them not just as a public company—but as a bridge for sovereign and corporate capital to rotate out of fiat into Bitcoin via compliant, equity-based structures.
Conclusion: A New Model Emerges
Strive is building more than a treasury. It’s building a system—one that fuses institutional asset management, activist governance, retail engagement, and Bitcoin-native capital strategy.
It doesn’t seek to hold more Bitcoin than anyone else. It seeks to hold more per share, more efficiently, more repeatably, and more defensibly than anyone else.
For companies, investors, and allocators watching the rise of Bitcoin-native corporate finance, Strive is a signal of how quickly the playbook is evolving.
