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According to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, House Democrats are discussing plans to introduce a broader crypto market structure bill in the next Congress, building on Rep. Maxine Waters’ 2025 Crypto Investor and Consumer Bill of Rights amendment to the CLARITY Act. Citing three industry sources, Terrett reported that the proposal would incorporate previously rejected House Democratic provisions and measures agreed upon by Senate Democrats and Republicans before the September cloture vote. Proposals under discussion include expanding the SEC’s oversight of crypto markets, limiting the CFTC’s role, and potentially adding ethics restrictions on crypto activities by President Trump and other federal officials. Republicans have described the proposal as a “messaging bill.”

According to Binance market data, Bitcoin is currently trading at approximately $80,510, up 4.2% over the past 24 hours. CoinGlass data shows that $465 million in positions were liquidated across the market in the past hour, of which shorts accounted for $377 million. BTC liquidations reached $229 million (shorts accounted for 96.4%), while ETH liquidations totaled $170 million. Over the past 24 hours, total liquidations reached $915 million, affecting 117,549 traders. Bitcoin initiated a short squeeze rally after the midterm election results were released.

Riot Platforms, the second-largest publicly listed Bitcoin mining company, sold 10,599 Bitcoin in the third quarter, reducing its holdings from 11,380 at the end of June to 2,418 at the end of September, a decline of nearly 79%. In the first nine months of the year, Riot sold a total of 20,264 BTC for approximately $1.5 billion, primarily to fund data center construction.
The company reported third-quarter revenue of $181 million, up 1% year-over-year, with net income of $4.03 million, compared with $104 million in the same period last year. Bitcoin mining revenue was $116 million, down about 28% year-over-year. Riot also signed a 15-year data center lease agreement with an unnamed leading AI lab for 910 MW of IT capacity, with an initial contract value of approximately $28 billion. The company has now contracted a total of 1,151 MW of data center capacity, with long-term contract revenue of about $38 billion.

Author | Wu Blockchain
TL;DR：
Strive added 6,182 BTC in a week and announced a new offering plan of up to $1 billion after completing a $630 million SATS offering. Meanwhile, Strategy neither bought nor sold BTC and spent approximately $204.9 million repurchasing STRC.
Assuming a BTC price of $80,000 for both companies, the nominal value of Strive’s preferred stock equals approximately 61.1% of its BTC holdings’ value, while Strategy’s convertible debt and preferred stock combined equal approximately 29.6%. Annualized dividends for Strive and dividends plus interest for Strategy amount to approximately 8.4% and 2.2% of their respective BTC holdings’ value. These ratios do not deduct cash or other assets.
SATS carries a fixed annual dividend rate of 15%. At its initial offering price of $90 per share, annual dividends equal approximately 16.7% of gross proceeds. The prospectus discloses that the company has established a reserve covering the first 18 months of dividends on the initial SATS issuance and expects to fund cash dividends primarily through additional financing.
Strive’s management views increasing the share of preferred capital as a way to outperform Bitcoin over the long term. Strategy, meanwhile, has incorporated repurchasing STRC at a discount into its capital allocation strategy to reduce future dividend obligations. Both companies’ stated uses of financing proceeds extend beyond buying Bitcoin.
As the DAT boom fades, few publicly listed companies continue to hold and buy Bitcoin — even Strategy has begun selling. Against this backdrop, a Bitcoin treasury company pursuing an even more aggressive strategy has emerged: Strive.
1.Who Is Strive? From an Anti-ESG Asset Manager to a Bitcoin Treasury Company
Strive (NASDAQ: ASST) did not start out as a Bitcoin treasury company. Founded in 2022 by biopharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks, former president of Anheuser-Busch Sales & Distribution, Strive began as an asset management firm. Ramaswamy later ran in the Republican presidential primaries. The company initially drew attention for opposing the inclusion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals in corporate decision-making, arguing that companies and asset managers should prioritize financial returns for shareholders. Strive launched its first ETF in August 2022. By the time it went public through a merger in 2025, its asset management business had more than $2 billion in client assets under management. Those were client assets, not the company’s own funds available to purchase Bitcoin.
The company’s strategy is currently led by Chairman and CEO Matt Cole. According to its annual report, Cole spent 15 years in the global fixed income division of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) before joining Strive, overseeing more than $70 billion in actively managed fixed income assets. He joined Strive in 2022, became CEO in 2023, and assumed the chairman role after the company went public through a merger in 2025. Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Pham was the company’s first employee and executive at its founding. He previously worked at Roivant Sciences, founded by Ramaswamy, and served as Ramaswamy’s chief of staff, bringing a background in corporate finance and transactions.
Strive’s involvement with Bitcoin predates its treasury business. When the company launched its wealth management business in November 2024, it had already proposed including Bitcoin in client portfolios. At the time, it cited global debt levels, long-term inflation, geopolitical pressures, and potential capital controls as risks that Bitcoin allocations were intended to hedge. The initial approach focused on allocating assets for clients; the company later went a step further, raising capital through a publicly listed entity to hold Bitcoin on its own balance sheet.
In May 2025, Strive announced plans to merge with Nasdaq-listed Asset Entities. The transaction closed on September 12 that year, with the company continuing to trade under the ticker ASST. The closing announcement disclosed approximately $750 million in secured equity financing, with up to an additional $750 million potentially available through the exercise of related warrants. Strive identified increasing Bitcoin per share and seeking to outperform direct Bitcoin ownership over the long term as its primary goals after going public. Beyond raising capital to purchase Bitcoin directly, Strive has also expanded its reserves through acquisitions. On January 16, 2026, the company completed its acquisition of Semler Scientific, bringing Semler’s existing Bitcoin reserves and operating business into its consolidated accounts.
In regulatory filings, the company explained that it uses Bitcoin’s investment performance as the hurdle rate for capital allocation, aiming to combine direct Bitcoin accumulation with other investment strategies to generate long-term returns exceeding those of Bitcoin itself. Perpetual preferred stock is also not a recent addition to its toolkit: shortly after going public, Strive announced plans to issue such securities to fund additional Bitcoin purchases and amplify common shareholders’ Bitcoin exposure. The subsequent launches of SATA and SATS put this financing approach into practice. Outperforming Bitcoin remains the company’s strategic objective, rather than an achieved result.
2.Strive Accelerates Capital Raising to Buy Bitcoin with 15% Dividend Preferred Stock
On October 26, Strive disclosed that it had purchased 6,182 BTC between October 17 and 23, bringing its holdings to 43,000 BTC. On the same day, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy, NASDAQ: MSTR) disclosed that it had neither bought nor sold Bitcoin between October 19 and 25, leaving its holdings unchanged at 848,517 BTC. It also spent approximately $204.9 million repurchasing STRC preferred stock.
Before these two announcements, Strive had just completed a $630 million offering of SATS perpetual preferred stock, followed by the establishment of an at-the-market (ATM) offering program of up to $1 billion. Strive’s management said it aims to outperform Bitcoin over the long term by maintaining a higher proportion of preferred capital. Strategy, meanwhile, had stated in its second-quarter announcement that it would continue repurchasing STRC when it trades below $100, depending on price and liquidity. Assuming the same Bitcoin price for both companies, Strive’s preferred capital and annualized dividends each represent a larger share of its Bitcoin holdings’ value than Strategy’s. The differences in their financing structures and recurring cash outflows explain the aggressiveness of Strive’s expansion strategy more clearly than the size of their Bitcoin holdings.
The initial SATS offering, completed on October 20, sold 7 million shares at $90 per share, raising gross proceeds of $630 million before underwriting fees and offering expenses. SATS pays a fixed annual dividend of 15% on a nominal amount of $100 per share and ranks below SATA but above common stock in dividend payments and liquidation distributions. SATA, meanwhile, is a variable-rate dividend security with a current annualized dividend rate of 13%. The company positions SATS as a product focused on income stability and SATA as one focused on price stability.
Management has clearly explained the purpose of the offering. In the closing announcement, Chairman and CEO Matt Cole said the company believes maintaining a higher Amplification Ratio is an important driver of long-term outperformance against Bitcoin, and that SATS adds another financing tool to pursue that goal. The metric is calculated by dividing the combined amount of preferred stock and debt by the value of the company’s Bitcoin holdings. Investor materials filed on October 13 reiterated management’s target of raising and maintaining this ratio above 60% when BTC trades below $100,000.
According to The Block’s account of StoneX’s October 26 research report, analyst Mark Palmer argued that SATS allows Strive to raise capital from two groups of income-focused investors simultaneously. Because SATS ranks below SATA, its proceeds add assets without adding claims senior to SATA. StoneX raised its ASST price target from $32 to $43 while maintaining a Buy rating. Offering documents also show that StoneX participated in underwriting the initial SATS offering, while its subsidiary StoneX Financial Inc. is one of the sales agents for the subsequent ATM program.
The additional financing also brings additional dividend obligations. At $15 per share annually, the initial SATS issuance requires $105 million in annual dividends, equivalent to approximately 16.7% of the $630 million in gross proceeds. The 15% rate is based on the nominal amount per share, while the 16.7% figure is based on the initial offering price and does not account for issuance costs.
3.At the Same Bitcoin Price, Strive’s Preferred Capital Ratio Is Roughly Twice Strategy’s
As of October 23, Strive had 14,030,176 SATA shares and 7 million SATS shares outstanding, totaling approximately $2.103 billion at a nominal amount of $100 per share. Data on Strategy’s website dated October 26 listed approximately $6.714 billion in convertible debt principal and $13.347 billion in preferred stock nominal value, totaling approximately $20.061 billion. This comparison includes only convertible debt principal and preferred stock nominal value, rather than either company’s total accounting liabilities.
For a consistent comparison, assuming a static BTC price of $80,000, Strive’s bitcoin holdings would be worth $3.44 billion, with the notional amount of its preferred stock representing approximately 61.1% of that value. Strategy’s bitcoin holdings would be worth approximately $67.881 billion, with the combined principal amount of its convertible debt and notional amount of its preferred stock representing approximately 29.6% of that value. The $80,000 figure is an assumed price, not the market price at the time of publication.
Dividend and interest expenses are calculated using the same assumed BTC price. Assuming the current share counts and dividend rates remain unchanged and dividends are declared in full, Strive’s two preferred stock series would pay combined annualized dividends of approximately $287 million, equivalent to about 8.4% of the value of its bitcoin holdings. Strategy’s annualized dividend and interest expenses, as disclosed on its official website, total approximately $1.509 billion, equivalent to about 2.2% of the value of its bitcoin holdings. Strategy’s STRC currently carries an annualized dividend rate of 12%, while its outstanding convertible debt includes tranches with coupon rates of 0%, 0.625%, 0.875%, and 2.25%, among others.
The ratios above do not deduct cash or other securities. Strive disclosed that, as of October 23, it also held approximately $504.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, along with STRC holdings with a fair value of approximately $50.18 million. Strategy disclosed that, as of October 25, it held approximately $4.83 billion in USD Reserve and $242.4 million in USD Cash. These assets have not been deducted from the numerators of the ratios above.
Bitcoin holdings per share reflect a separate change. Based on Strive’s disclosed assumed fully diluted share count, bitcoin holdings per share rose from approximately 29,039 satoshis to 33,066 satoshis between October 16 and 23, an increase of about 13.9%. This calculation simply divides the number of BTC held by the share count, without deducting the preferential claims of SATA and SATS or dividends. It does not represent the return earned by common shareholders over the same period.
Metrics with identical or similar names used by the two companies are not directly interchangeable. On Strategy’s website, “Debt” includes only the principal amount of convertible debt, while “Net Leverage” is calculated by subtracting dollar-denominated assets from that debt and dividing the result by the value of its BTC holdings; it excludes preferred stock. Its “Amplification” is BTC Reserve divided by Net Reserve, which differs from Strive’s percentage-based definition. This article compares the securities consistently using their nominal amounts, without treating the resulting ratios as accounting debt ratios or measures of actual share-price leverage.
4.How Will Strive Fund Its Substantial Dividends After Paying Off Its Debt?
Strive stated in its second-quarter earnings release that, as of August 7, it had no outstanding short- or long-term debt, its bitcoin was unencumbered, and it faced no margin requirements. Its October SATS prospectus also disclosed that the company had no debt on a consolidated basis as of October 23. By comparison, Strategy’s website lists September 16, 2027, as the earliest date on which convertible noteholders can require repayment, for the 0.625% notes due in 2028.
Perpetual preferred stock has no fixed maturity date, but the SATS documents provide holders with a right to require a cash repurchase under specified circumstances. Upon a contractually defined fundamental change, holders may require the company to repurchase their shares at the nominal amount per share plus accumulated unpaid dividends, subject to conditions including the availability of funds legally available for payment. This right differs from the ordinary repayment of principal at maturity.
The arrangements for funding dividends are set out in the prospectus. Strive’s October 26 ATM prospectus supplement disclosed that, at the closing of the initial offering, the company had increased its dividend reserve using existing cash and securities. At $22.50 per share, the reserve totaled approximately $157.5 million, covering the first 18 months of dividends on the initial SATS issuance. The company also stated that it expects to fund SATS cash dividends primarily through additional financing, including ATM securities offerings.
The October 26 filing also sets out restrictions: even if sufficient funds are available, the board may choose not to declare SATS dividends or to declare less than the full amount. If SATA dividends are not paid in full, the company is prohibited from paying SATS dividends. The filing warns that failure to declare and pay dividends in full could cause the price of SATS to decline. SATS dividends are cumulative and accrue under their terms regardless of whether they are declared or funds are legally available for payment.
SATA began paying dividends on each business day on June 16. The first SATS dividend has also been declared: according to the October 26 filing, Strive announced on October 21 an initial dividend of $0.8710 per share, with a record date of November 6 and a payment date of November 9.
5.Strategy Continues to Repurchase STRC as Strive Expands Its Financing
Strategy’s plans to repurchase STRC predate the October weekly disclosure. In the company’s July 30 second-quarter earnings release, CEO Phong Le said that if STRC traded below $100, the company intended to make disciplined repurchases based on market prices and liquidity, adding that repurchases at a discount could reduce future preferred dividend obligations. The same release disclosed that the company had established a BTC monetization program, with cumulative year-to-date sales totaling $218.4 million as of July 26.
The latest weekly repurchases were funded with USD Cash. Strategy’s October 26 Form 8-K shows that the company repurchased 2,068,459 STRC shares for approximately $204.9 million. The filing identifies USD Reserve as supporting preferred dividend and debt interest payments, while USD Cash is designated for bitcoin purchases, reserve replenishment, and other capital management activities.
Strive’s new offering program also allows for multiple uses of proceeds. In addition to bitcoin purchases, working capital, and other investments, its October 26 announcement lists cash dividend payments on preferred stock and repurchases of ASST common stock or SATA. The ATM prospectus supplement states that the sales agents are not required to sell any specific amount of securities. The $1 billion maximum therefore represents offering capacity, rather than funds already received or a committed budget for additional bitcoin purchases.
As of the disclosure dates cited above, Strive had repaid its interest-bearing debt and expanded its bitcoin holdings through two series of perpetual preferred stock. Strategy retained convertible debt and multiple series of preferred stock while continuing to repurchase STRC. Using the same assumed BTC price of $80,000, Strive’s preferred capital represented approximately 61.1% of the value of its bitcoin holdings, compared with 29.6% for Strategy’s combined convertible debt and preferred stock. Strive’s annualized dividend expenses were also higher relative to the value of its bitcoin holdings. This is the most direct difference between the two companies’ current capital structures.
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Circle disclosed that revenue and reserve income in the third quarter of 2026 rose 17% year-over-year to $865 million, while net income from continuing operations increased 5% to $226 million. Other income included $182 million from the ARC token presale. During the period, the average circulating supply of USDC stood at $73.3 billion, up 8% year-over-year. Circle also stated that it has completed the genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens and signed a definitive agreement to acquire cross-border payments platform Tazapay. The transaction is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

According to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, Sherrod Brown won the Ohio Senate race despite more than $64 million in crypto industry spending. Pro-crypto Republican Representatives Bryan Steil, Zach Nunn and Ann Wagner lost their seats. Pro-crypto Senator Pete Ricketts won the Nebraska race, while pro-crypto Representative Andy Barr won Kentucky’s Senate seat. Terrett expects Tim Scott to become the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee following the shift in Senate control. The race involving French Hill had not been called at the time of her post.

Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and Amended Common Reporting Standard) Bill 2026 on November 4, implementing the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). Under the new law, relevant crypto-asset service providers will be required to collect transaction information starting in 2027, with Hong Kong beginning automatic exchanges of crypto-related tax information with partner jurisdictions in 2028.
The amended Common Reporting Standard (CRS) will take effect in 2028, with automatic exchanges of financial account information under the updated standard beginning in 2029. Hong Kong's Financial Services and the Treasury Secretary Christopher Hui said the legislation aims to strengthen international tax transparency and combat cross-border tax evasion.

CZ: Companies Get Complacent Over Time, Many Lessons Learned From the Hack
On November 3, 2026, Binance founder CZ reflected on the Binance hack in an interview with Talking Tokens Podcast. He said companies can grow complacent and overlook potential problems after long periods without security incidents. He argued that all hacks are preventable and that there were many lessons to learn from the incident. He also supported forming an industry security alliance to share best practices, conduct cross-audits and help freeze funds quickly, saying he hoped to help move the initiative forward.

According to SoSoValue data, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded a total net outflow of $116 million on November 3 EST, marking 3 consecutive days of net outflows. Meanwhile, Ethereum spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $85.3462 million yesterday, extending their net outflow streak to 7 consecutive days.

Blockchain financial infrastructure platform FinChain (incubated by Fosun Wealth Holdings) announced the launch of FLEX & FINO, an on-chain Yield Enhancement Strategy introduced in partnership with institutional open finance platform Plume. Designed as a leveraged looping yield solution for FUSD—FinChain's core yield-bearing RWA asset backed 100% by tokenized short-term U.S. Treasuries and compliant money market funds. FinChain has also completed integration with KuCoin to enable FUSD's use within KuCoin's RCMS staking mirror solution.

According to the latest trading data from onchain prediction market Polymarket as of November 3, 2026, the market-implied probability of a "Democrats Sweep"in the 2026 Midterm Elections market has reached 100%. This indicates that onchain capital has priced in a near-total certainty that Democrats will capture full control of both chambers of Congress, with the market placing heavy, almost decisive bets that Donald Trump's governing coalition will suffer a "crushing defeat" in the midterms. If both houses change hands, the legislative progress of US crypto policy could face heightened uncertainty, while the Trump family's commercial crypto interests are likely to come under intensified scrutiny and question.

Sheldon Xia, founder of crypto exchange BitMart, confirmed that the platform suffered a minor security breach yesterday, noting that swift investigative and security-strengthening actions were taken. Preliminary findings suggest the intrusion may have been executed by the same threat actors responsible for the simultaneous exploit targeting Brazil's major crypto exchange, Mercado Bitcoin.
Xia disclosed that recent restructuring has left BitMart operating with a bare-bones core team facing severe understaffing across its security operations, exacerbated by doxxing, user threats, and retaliatory actions from disgruntled former employees, though the remaining staff is making every effort to protect remaining systems, user data, and platform assets.

Bitfinex Hacker on Binance Hack: North Korean Hackers Target the Weakest Links
Bitfinex hacker Ilya Lichtenstein told CNN on November 1 that the Binance hack resembled North Korean tactics targeting weak links. Attackers may phish employees into downloading malware instead of breaching exchange websites. He called the first 48 hours crucial for tracing stolen funds. AI agents speed transfers, but blockchain records remain traceable years later. Lichtenstein stole about 120,000 BTC from Bitfinex in 2016. He and his wife pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy in 2023. Sentenced to five years in 2024, he was released early in January 2026 and now says he works as a white-hat hacker.

According to Lookonchain, the hacker behind the $6.3 billion Binance exploit is continuing to convert stolen SOL into BTC. The illicit funds were first dispersed across multiple wallets, where SOL was sold for USDC. The USDC was subsequently bridged to Ethereum to purchase ETH, which is then being swapped into BTC via THORChain.

Haipo Yang, Founder of CoinEx, stated that the recent Binance security breach exposed at least three critical mistakes that were entirely avoidable, underscoring a failure of operational discipline rather than a lack of sophisticated technology. First, development and operations environments lacked strict isolation; production access should be restricted to dedicated hardware free of third-party software, separating daily communication and browsing onto independent devices.
Second, the operations stack lacked meaningful two-factor authentication (2FA), enabling full production compromise via a single leaked credential rather than enforcing hardware-bound MFA through tools like AWS Session Manager. Third, the MPC multi-signature setup existed in name only, as signers failed to conduct substantive independent verifications, causing the entire scheme to collapse upon a single node breach; Yang emphasized that multisig mechanisms are only effective when signers maintain mutual distrust and independently validate each raw transaction rather than blind-signing upstream requests.

On-chain investigator ZachXBT disclosed on November 4 that the financial institution allegedly affected by a crypto theft exceeding $133 million is Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, a French banking group with approximately $235 billion in assets. ZachXBT previously reported that an EU-based entity was suspected of losing more than $106 million from multiple centralized exchange accounts on November 1. The suspected attacker withdrew funds in USDC and USDT before swapping assets into ETH and privacy coin XMR and transferring funds across multiple blockchains.

Bybit CEO: Exchanges Must Prepare for Hacks to Happen(ARCHIVE FOOTAGE)
On April 21, 2026, Bybit Co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou reflected on the exchange's hack in an interview with The Block. He said one of the biggest shifts in thinking was moving from preventing attacks to assuming an attack will happen, minimizing the damage, and ensuring the company survives. He also discussed Bybit's previous reliance on a third party for its cold wallet. The exchange has since built a banking-grade hardware wallet system requiring staff to be physically present to unlock the HSM. However, such systems are costly and time-consuming to build, so most projects still need to rely on third parties. He said companies should address social engineering alongside technical security and build multiple layers of protection on the assumption that an attack will occur.

GitBook reported that attackers used AI agents to gain unauthorized access to some of its infrastructure credentials at 1:00 p.m. EST on November 2. The company detected and blocked the attack, temporarily suspending some services. Potentially exposed data includes integration tokens, Git Sync secrets, API tokens, and visitor questions submitted to GitBook Assistant. No evidence of content modification has been found. GitBook rotated all infrastructure credentials and secrets, revoked all customer API tokens, and advised users to rotate third-party credentials and re-authenticate GitBook MCP connections. By 10:21 a.m. EST on November 3, its app, API, and published docs were accessible again, though some services remained degraded. A full post-incident report is planned.
Previously, trade[XYZ] reported unauthorized activity involving its GitBook documentation, which it later restored, and warned users against clicking links during the investigation. PancakeSwap temporarily took its documentation site offline as a precaution following the GitBook security incident and redirected documentation links to its official homepage.

On-chain analyst @FabianoSolana reported that suspected North Korean hackers moved approximately $1.46 million through Jupiter Lend and Circle’s cross-chain bridge. Funds from an FBI-flagged Solana wallet (AffzFD) were routed through roughly 35 intermediary wallets, consolidated, and deposited into Jupiter Lend before a new wallet withdrew a similar amount minutes later. The funds were then swapped into USDC, bridged through Noble and dYdX, and returned to Solana. The analyst reported 16 outbound transfers totaling $1,463,410 and 19 inbound transfers totaling $1,463,400, with no funds frozen.
Jupiter COO Kash Dhanda clarified that the attackers only deposited and withdrew funds through Jupiter Lend, unlike an earlier Aave incident involving borrowing non-freezable assets against stolen stablecoins. He said the funds remained fully traceable through LP tokens, with wallet associations preserved, and that Jupiter’s security team monitored the activity in real time. As of publication, Circle had not publicly addressed the transfers or explained why the funds were not frozen.