Michael Saylor, Chairman of the Board of MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), placed Bitcoin, two of his company's income products, and Tether on a unified monetary scale.
Observers claim that Saylor is trying to hint to investors which digital assets to hold for growth and which for stability; however, he has not confirmed this.
Four Labels, One Sliding Scale
Saylor shared his thoughts in an X post on August 13, where he classified assets from the most volatile to the most stable.
Bitcoin was one of the assets Saylor calls "digital capital." Saylor classified MicroStrategy's STRC as "digital debt," the SR-strcUSX token as "digital money," and Tether's $USDT as "digital currency."
The assets were arranged in a table, starting on the left with Bitcoin, followed by STRC, SR-strcUSX, and $USDT. Saylor noted that volatility and potential return decrease moving to the right, while stability and utility in everyday life increase.
According to Saylor, Bitcoin is the perfect store of value, while a stablecoin like $USDT is the perfect medium of exchange in the digital economy. The two MicroStrategy-linked instruments filled the gap between them.
What's STRC's Place in All This?
STRC, nicknamed "Stretch," is the element doing the main work in the middle tier of Saylor's composition.
It is a variable-rate perpetual preferred stock from MicroStrategy, currently paying 12% annual cash dividends twice a month. MicroStrategy's board sets this rate and must announce each payment, and the shares can continue paying cash even if their market price declines.
Saylor now calls this digital debt and claims it is a semi-stable, high-yield store of value. He stated that it is financial engineering production that transforms digital debt into digital money.
Saylor wrote: "Digital money combines digital currency technology with digital capital economics: stability, yield, transactional utility, and store-of-value function."
However, this is not the first time Saylor has mentioned digital debt. On August 7, he told his followers that anyone looking for "the next billion-dollar fintech unicorn" should "study digital debt."
MicroStrategy, which holds corporate Bitcoin, reinvests $BTC into the preferred shares. On August 10, the company sold 1,690 Bitcoin for $108.6 million and used that cash to redeem approximately 1.15 million shares of STRC, leaving it with 840,447 $BTC.
A Bridge to Solana
For the "digital money" tier, Saylor points to strcUSX, a product that Solstice Finance launched on Solana this week. Solstice Finance, which describes STRC as a bridge between Bitcoin and stablecoins, created a vault that gives users exposure to STRC's dividend yield and price risk without actually passing the shares to them.
Depositors contribute Solstice's USX settlement token and receive one of two tranches. The first tranche pays out to the senior token, SR-strcUSX, with a target annual yield of 7%. Solstice calls it the first STRC-linked instrument on Solana.
Digital Debt Heads to Brazil
Hours before posting the digital asset monetary article, Saylor wrote about digital debt coming to Brazil. He reacted to an announcement by OranjeBTC about the launch of DIGY11, which the company calls "the first Bitcoin ecosystem preferred equity ETF with monthly payments."
Saylor stated that DIGY11, a B3-category exchange-traded fund, will provide access to STRC in the Brazilian market with monthly payouts in reais, daily liquidity, and currency hedging.
