Summary Strive Asset Management is rated Sell due to persistent underperformance and a flawed BTC treasury model. ASST holds 13,628 BTC, but is underwater by 32% with an average purchase price of $104,367 per BTC. Operational costs, rising preferred dividend expenses, and a narrow premium to BTC NAV erode the investment case. ASST’s ability to issue new shares for BTC will be constrained, making direct BTC ownership more attractive. Strive Asset Management ( ASST ) has seen a previously unhinged premium to its Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) holdings erode over the last 6 months, with the stock down 88%. This has underperformed by more than 2x the 40% dip in BTC over the same time period. The security and its preferreds offer an easy way for retail investors to add BTC exposure directly to their investment accounts. Bears flag that it's difficult to build a bullish case beyond this for ASST versus buying BTC directly. ASST currently holds 13,628 BTC, with the cryptocurrency currently trading for $71,091 per BTC, to place the total value of this position at $968 million. ASST had 69,158,785 basic average common shares outstanding as of the end of its fiscal 2025 fourth quarter, for a market cap of around $700 million as it is currently trading hands for $10.26 per share. I last covered the ticker with a Hold rating. Data by YCharts Strive Asset Management Website Strive Asset Management Website Critically, ASST bought its BTC at a markedly average higher price of $104,367 per BTC , which means it is underwater by around $454 million on its holdings. This is a loss of around 32%. This difference between its average price and current market price reflected across its total BTC reserve is shareholder value lost on a business model that I think will find it hard to replicate the success championed by Microstrategy ( MSTR ). This hinged on the common shares of the BTC holder trading at a premium to its BTC reserve to provide a backdrop for the sustained issuance of new common shares to buy more BTC. ASST is currently trading at an enterprise value to BTC NAV ratio ("mNAV") of just 1.05x. For some context, this metric would have been well north of 10x against ASST's previous 52-week high. The current ratio is still above 1x, which means ASST can issue new common shares through its ongoing at-the-market ("ATM") capacity at a pace that optimises its BTC yield. To be clear, the company held total cash of $67.4 million as of the end of its fourth quarter. New BTC purchases have to be made with newly issued shares, with the company also tapping its Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock ( SATA ) as currency for BTC purchases. Strive Asset Management Fiscal 2025 Form 10-K Operational Layer, Financing Costs, And Risk A key drawback of owning BTC via a treasury company centers on adding a layer of costs to cryptocurrency. ASST has between 11 and 50 employees according to its LinkedIn profile, with its recently filed Form 10-K providing a more granular figure of 28 full-time employees ("FTEs") as of the end of the fourth quarter. Critically, the company completed its all-stock acquisition of Semler Scientific post-period end. Semler was an early adopter of BTC as a reserve. The company is in the healthcare space, providing medical technology and software to enable point-of-care testing for early chronic disease detection. Semler has around 79 FTEs as per the last filed Form 10-K for its 2024. ASST's selling, general, and administrative expenses ("SG&A") came in at $5 million for its recent fourth quarter, which, in aggregate with Semler's SG&A expenses, convey the layer of cost above and beyond just holding BTC directly that holders will have to take on. YCharts Buying ASST at this level strictly for its BTC exposure would be a belief that the company will proportionally outperform BTC. This was the prior bull case for MSTR, but I believe this zeitgeist has come to an end with the proliferation of BTC as a treasury companies. There is at least 65 publicly listed U.S. companies buying and holding BTC directly on their balance sheets. ASST also spent $4.3 million on dividend payments to SATA shareholders in the period from September 12, 2025 to December 31, 2025. This is set to rise with the closing of a January follow-on offering of 1,320,000 shares of SATA at a price of $90 per share. The combination of financing expenses, an operational layer, and a negative return on an average BTC buying price that's materially higher than the current range of the currency portends a fundamental erosion of the need to own ASST versus buying BTC directly. This is not to say BTC is a bad investment, but that owning BTC via ASST is setting up for a negative investment base. For SATA holders, ASST held a dividend reserve of 18 months as of March. Strive Asset Management Website The BTC Price Bulls would highlight that the malaise with the stock reflects BTC prices that have dropped, and a recovery of this still represents upside for the stock, especially with it already trading at such a narrow range. This means that any rally in BTC presents a significant risk factor for bears, with the scale of this risk magnified exponentially if this rally is overlayed with a recovery in ASST's mNAV. To be clear, ASST could see its stock price double even if BTC moves up less than this amount if its mNAV sees strong growth in addition to the price of BTC moving up. Conclusion ASST's BTC as a treasury model will find it difficult to replicate the historical success of MSTR, with a narrow premium as per mNAV set to constrain the overall cadence of capital market access via common shares, instead forcing the use of more expensive preferreds with SATA currently with a 12.75% coupon. I am rating ASST as a Sell.