Strive, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin treasury company that trades as ASST, reported net income of $509.0 million for the third quarter of 2026 on Friday 6 November. Strive’s Q3 2026 earnings rest on a paper gain. According to the company’s quarterly report (10-Q) filed with the SEC, $533.7 million came from marking its bitcoin up to the 30 September price, while revenue from its actual businesses was $2.7 million. Over nine months, the same company still shows a net loss of $14.5 million.
The earnings release attached to Strive’s 8-K puts the headline numbers first: diluted earnings of $5.24 per share, net income attributable to common stockholders of $474.8 million after $34.2 million of preferred dividends, and a non-GAAP adjusted figure of $494.6 million. Strive sold no bitcoin during the quarter. No cash came in from the gain.
Bitcoin has fallen since the quarter closed, and Strive has kept buying: it held 43,124 BTC on 30 October against about 28,000 on 30 September. On the same fair-value arithmetic Strive uses, the bigger stack is already showing a quarter-to-date paper loss of roughly $344 million, a Coindaro calculation detailed below.
Strive Q3 2026 earnings: where the $509 million comes from
Strive’s income statement for the three months to 30 September has two very uneven halves. On one side, investment advisory fees of $1.56 million, medical-device sales of $1.13 million from Semler Scientific, the company it absorbed in January, and $4,000 of other revenue. On the other, $38.7 million of operating expenses, including $15.6 million of staff costs and a $14.65 million impairment of the medical-device research and development intangible asset.
Left there, the quarter would have been a loss of about $36 million. What turned it into a $509 million profit is a line called “net unrealized gain on digital assets, at fair value”: $533.7 million. Two smaller items helped, an $8.8 million unrealised gain on the STRC preferred shares of Strategy that Strive holds, and $1.5 million of other investment gains. Investment gains totalled $544.0 million.
The 10-Q’s roll-forward of digital assets shows how mechanical this is. Strive started the quarter with $1,164.6 million of bitcoin, bought $641.9 million more, sold nothing, and ended at $2,340.2 million. The $533.7 million difference is the change in market value. Strive remeasures its bitcoin at the end of each reporting period using quoted prices on the Coinbase exchange, under the fair-value standard ASC 820, and books every change in net income.
| Item (Strive, Q3 2026) | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | $2.7 million | 10-Q |
| Operating expenses | $38.7 million | 10-Q |
| Unrealised gain on bitcoin | $533.7 million | 10-Q |
| Net income | $509.0 million | 10-Q, press release |
| Net income attributable to common stock | $474.8 million ($5.24 per diluted share) | 10-Q, press release |
| Net loss, nine months to 30 September | $14.5 million | 10-Q |
| Net cash used in operating activities, nine months | $49.5 million | 10-Q |
| Bitcoin held, 30 September | about 28,000 BTC | 10-Q |
A rough check shows where the gain came from. Strive held about 19,864 bitcoin when the quarter opened (28,000 minus the 8,136 bought in Q3), and the opening value of $1,164.6 million works out at roughly $58,600 per coin, our derivation from the 10-Q figures. At the end of September the company marked each bitcoin at $83,577. A move of about $25,000 per coin on close to 20,000 coins, plus the rise on the coins bought during the quarter at an average $78,885, accounts for the gain.
Nine months still show a loss, and cash went out
The third quarter only looks this strong because the first half was so weak. Over nine months the change in the fair value of Strive’s bitcoin was a gain of just $9.9 million. Subtract the third quarter’s $533.7 million and the first six months carried a net unrealised loss of about $523.8 million, which the third quarter erased (our subtraction from the 10-Q).
The nine-month result is a net loss of $14.5 million. It includes a one-off $66.7 million bargain purchase gain on the Semler acquisition and an $8.4 million loss on extinguishing debt. After $73.9 million of preferred dividends, the loss attributable to common stockholders is $88.4 million, or $1.17 per share.
The cash-flow statement tells the plainer story. Operating activities used $49.5 million of cash in nine months, and Strive paid $61.9 million of preferred dividends in cash over the same period. Bitcoin purchases are funded by selling securities. In the third quarter alone, Strive sold 14.4 million Class A shares at the market for $271.6 million gross and 5.1 million SATA preferred shares for $511.2 million gross.
At 30 September, the balance sheet showed $285.4 million in cash, the STRC stake at $50.2 million, total liabilities of only $37.5 million and no debt left: the convertible notes inherited from Semler were partly exchanged into SATA in January and the rest retired in May. The accumulated deficit stood at $562.4 million.
The 63.2% BTC yield covers nine months, not the quarter
Strive’s release lists its own bitcoin metrics. “BTC yield” was 18.5% for the third quarter and 63.2% for the year to date. The 63.2% is easy to misread as a quarterly number. It is not: it covers January to September. A separate figure of 19.3% applies to 1 to 30 October.
BTC yield is not income and not a return to investors. It tracks how much bitcoin the company holds per diluted share, and it rises whenever Strive buys bitcoin with money raised from preferred stock, or sells common shares for more than the bitcoin each share represents. The release gives a “BTC gain per ADSO” of 4,336.11 for the quarter, with a dollar equivalent of $3.62, but the pages we read do not give the formula. We looked at how this metric moves with preferred issuance in our analysis of Strive’s $630 million SATS sale at $90 and our report on the 4,045-bitcoin week that left bitcoin per share flat.
Matthew Cole, Strive’s chairman and chief executive, credits that bitcoin yield for the common stock’s showing against bitcoin this year, and in the release he ties the outlook to the new preferred: “With the recent issuance of SATS, we believe Strive has never been in a better position to generate long-term returns in excess of Bitcoin for our common equity shareholders.”
Bitcoin is below the 30 September mark: our Q4 arithmetic
Strive kept buying after the quarter closed. The 10-Q’s subsequent-events note says it bought 15,124 bitcoin between 1 and 30 October at an average of about $83,310 each, fees included, taking its treasury to 43,124 BTC on 30 October, a figure also given in its 8-K of 2 November. It has not published purchases made after 30 October. Its recent purchases have been reported in weekly 8-K filings, the latest dated 2 November.
Bitcoin then fell. Coinbase Exchange, the venue whose prices Strive uses for its marks, showed BTC-USD at $75,509 in its one-minute candle closing at 17:47 UTC on Friday. Today’s market moves are in our report on bitcoin’s slide after the AI rout and the US jobs data.
Applying Strive’s own method to those inputs gives the following snapshot. It is a Coindaro calculation, not a company figure and not a forecast of the fourth-quarter result, which will depend on the bitcoin price at 31 December.
| Lot (Coindaro calculation) | Bitcoin | Carrying or cost price | Price used (Coinbase, 17:47 UTC 6 Nov) | Change in value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Held on 30 September | 28,000 | $83,577 (fair value, 10-Q) | $75,509 | about -$225.9 million |
| Bought 1 to 30 October | 15,124 | $83,310 (average cost, 10-Q) | $75,509 | about -$118.0 million |
| Total quarter to date | 43,124 | about -$343.9 million |
That equals about 64% of the third quarter’s $533.7 million paper gain, though it is measured on a larger pile of coins, most of them bought at different prices. Against what Strive actually paid, the subtraction gives a similar result. The 10-Q puts the cost of the 28,000 coins at $2,524.8 million, an average of $90,170 each. Add October’s purchases and the 43,124 BTC cost about $3,785 million, or roughly $87,765 per coin, against a market value near $3,256 million at Friday’s 17:47 UTC price. The difference is about $528 million, again our calculation. Even at the 30 September marks, after the third-quarter gain, the 10-Q’s own figures put fair value $184.6 million below cost ($2,340.2 million against $2,524.8 million).
The Block reported on Friday that the holding makes Strive the fourth-largest public-company holder of bitcoin, behind Strategy, Metaplanet and Twenty One. We have not checked that ranking independently.
SATA and SATS: about $287 million of dividends a year
The other number that does not appear in the profit is the cost of the preferred shares that pay for the bitcoin. Strive has two listed preferreds, both with a stated amount of $100 per share.
SATA, the variable-rate Series A, pays a monthly dividend currently set at 13.00% a year. It had 14,030,176 shares outstanding on 30 October, after 1,089,555 more were sold in October for $109.0 million. Strive says in the 10-Q that it intends to adjust the rate to keep SATA trading between $99 and $101. On Friday it traded at $96.17 at 17:47 UTC, according to Yahoo Finance data, below that range.
SATS, the 15.00% Series A Perpetual SATS Preferred, closed its public offering on 20 October with 7,000,000 shares and about $609.0 million of net proceeds; 7,003,418 were outstanding on 30 October. Its first daily dividend date is Monday 9 November, with dividends then falling on every business day. The 10-Q says SATS dividends are cumulative, but no dividend or interest accrues on unpaid ones, unlike SATA, where unpaid dividends compound. SATS ranks above common stock and below SATA. It traded at $94.23 at 17:45 UTC on Friday (Yahoo Finance), above the $90 offering price we reported in October.
At the stated rates, SATA’s dividends come to about $182.4 million a year and SATS’s to about $105.1 million, a total near $287 million, our calculation on the shares outstanding at 30 October. Strive had $490.4 million of cash on that date, and its operating activities used $49.5 million of cash in the first nine months. It keeps a dividend reserve, raised in March to 18 months of SATA dividends; at the SATS closing it added $22.50 per SATS share, the first 18 months of that dividend, funded with cash and securities. The 10-Q does not give the reserve’s total. The 10-Q adds that a 0.50 point rise in SATA’s rate would cost about $0.6 million more each month.
The common stock has moved more than bitcoin. ASST traded at $20.28 at 17:47 UTC on Friday, according to Yahoo Finance, against a previous close of $20.59. The Block reported that the stock had lost more than 31% in 30 days, against about 12% for bitcoin. Strive still had about $1.74 billion of common-stock capacity and about $1.62 billion of SATA capacity under its at-the-market programmes at 30 October; in October it sold 5,330,150 Class A shares for $157.5 million gross.
Why a falling bitcoin price now hits profit directly
Companies that hold bitcoin as a treasury asset now carry it at fair value: each quarter they compare the bitcoin price at the closing date with the previous mark and book the difference as profit or loss, even if they have sold nothing. That makes reported earnings a function of one price on one day. A company can report record profit in a quarter where its cash shrank, and a loss in a quarter where it raised billions.
Strategy showed the same pattern a week ago, as we reported in our piece on Strategy’s record $20.9 billion quarter built on a bitcoin mark-up. For readers new to the asset itself, our bitcoin page explains supply and how the price is formed. Strive’s release adds that the company is looking at ways to put its balance sheet to work, including banking, brokerage, wallet.">decentralised finance, reinsurance, structured asset-backed securities and tokenisation, without naming any decision or date.
What comes next for Strive
The next dates are close. The first SATS dividend date falls on Monday 9 November. Strive’s next weekly 8-K should show whether it bought more bitcoin after 30 October and how it paid for it. Any change to SATA’s monthly rate would show how Strive intends to bring the shares back toward $99 to $101.
The fourth-quarter result will be set by the bitcoin price on Coinbase at the close of 31 December. At Friday’s 17:47 UTC price, the 43,124 coins were worth about $344 million less than their 30 September marks and October purchase prices, and about $528 million less than Strive paid for them.