
The Bitcoin Wizard | Vice President, Investments @Strive Christ. Family. Bitcoin. In that order.
Joined January 2025
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I’m absolutely elated to announce that I have joined Strive as Vice President, Investments.
As you can probably tell, I’ve been obsessed with Bitcoin, capital markets, and the extraordinary financial architecture emerging at the intersection of the two.
Now I get to work on that frontier every day.
Strive is building alongside one of the most consequential transformations happening in modern finance. Bitcoin becoming productive collateral for an entirely new generation of capital markets instruments, corporate finance, and digital credit.
The opportunity to help think through these markets, communicate them, and contribute to what comes next is something I could not be more excited about.
Even better, I get to do it alongside an incredible team of talented, ambitious people who are genuinely pushing the frontier forward.
I also understand the responsibility that comes with the role. I intend to work relentlessly on behalf of Strive’s shareholders and do everything I can to contribute to the long-term value we are building for them.
I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity.
Time to build.
Strive had gone far too long without hiring a podcaster. As our Bitcoin holdings have grown exponentially through accretive capital formation, our podcasters-per-share metric was beginning to move in the wrong direction. Several astute investors have been calling on us to defend our lead in this critical metric, and I agree with them: now is the time to lean in.
Today, I’m excited to announce that @AdamBLiv has joined @Strive. Adam represents true excellence as a podcaster, but the reason for this hire is rooted in one of Strive’s foundational principles: meritocracy.
Strive has been publicly opposed to DEI from the beginning, but we have also consistently opposed credentialism. Rejecting credentialism has been one of the main reasons we have been able to hire with excellence throughout Strive’s Bitcoin journey.
Credentialism causes institutions to outsource their judgment to resumes, pedigrees, titles, and conventional career paths. It puts too much weight on what someone has previously been permitted to do and not enough on the agency, principles, original thinking, work ethic, and demonstrated ability of the person in front of you.
At Strive, we give people significant responsibility because of how they think and what they have demonstrated they can do. The results speak for themselves. Our board and management team are young by public-company standards because we select for deep, principled belief in Bitcoin and demonstrated track records, not age, pedigree, or the number of boards someone has served on or executive positions they have already held.
When True North was getting started, I publicly supported the “kid analysts” there because they represented the same principle. They were not waiting for an institution to give them permission or a title. They were doing the work, publishing thinking that was better than both traditional media and institutional investment analysis at the time, and allowing the public to judge the quality of it.
Adam is an exceptionally clear example of that principle. Before becoming a Bitcoin analyst and creator, his last full-time role was as a manager at @Target.
A credentialist sees a former Target manager and asks why he should hold an important analytical role at a public financial company. A meritocrat studies Adam’s body of work and asks how quickly he can start.
Adam has consistently published deeply researched, first-principles analysis. He works extraordinarily hard, communicates complex ideas clearly, and has the courage to put contrarian views into the public record where everyone can evaluate them. It also does not hurt that he is freaking hilarious.
Nowhere has that been clearer than in his work on Strive. When Strive was at its weakest point in terms of public perception, Adam was buying and explaining why. What impressed me was not simply that he was bullish. It was that he independently arrived at his view through rigorous, first-principles work when sentiment was terrible and almost nobody else saw what he saw. Without any affiliation with Strive or access to internal information, his work was remarkably consistent with what we were seeing from the inside and, at times, even pushed our own analysis a step further. His analysis of Strive’s future growth has been among the most holistic I have seen anywhere, including internally. Most importantly, he was right.
There was real value in having such a credible and completely independent voice analyzing Strive. But Strive has too many opportunities, too much complexity, and too much work ahead of us not to bring the best talent we can find in-house.
I view Adam as a potential generational talent in financial analysis. The idea that someone could go from being a manager at Target to helping the most ambitious public company in capital markets navigate an extraordinarily complex competitive landscape may seem absurd to a credentialist. To me, it is meritocracy working exactly as intended.
Adam will join Strive as Vice President of Investments, working within our investment function and reporting to our Chief Investment Officer, @Werkman. He will build a systematic research function around the most important companies across the pure-play Bitcoin landscape. He will read every consequential filing, analyze capital structures and capital-markets decisions, and continuously evaluate positioning, valuation, growth rates, competitive dynamics, risks, and forward trajectories.
Adam will apply an even deeper level of that same rigor to Strive, now with full access to our internal data and dashboards. His work will help us pressure-test our assumptions, identify opportunities earlier, and make better long-term decisions for our shareholders. He was able to see Strive with extraordinary clarity from the outside. Imagine what he will be able to do from the inside.
We also intend for Adam to continue publishing through his existing channel under the @TNorth brand, now with the appropriate disclosures and responsibilities that come with working for a public company. His ability to research deeply and communicate complex ideas in an entertaining way is part of what makes him special, and we want him to keep doing it.
The bad news for public markets is that what I consider the best source of independent Strive analysis will no longer be independent. The good news for Strive shareholders is that we are bringing that mind in-house and putting it to work for them.
Adam did not earn this opportunity despite lacking a conventional Wall Street resume. He earned it because his public body of work is better evidence of his ability than any conventional résumé could be. Credentialism would have missed Adam. Meritocracy brought him to Strive.
Welcome to Strive, Adam.
$ASST $SATA
I trust humanity to build nuclear reactors, land rockets vertically, sequence genomes, and manufacture semiconductors with features measured in nanometers.
I do not trust twelve people sitting around a conference table to determine the appropriate quantity of money.
Call me old-fashioned.
$BTC
Adam Livingston retweeted
True North Episode 83: The Frontier of Credit xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1aJbdEawo…
Adam Livingston retweeted
Corporate Credit issued against crypto since August 2020.
Includes:
1. Debt issued
2. Preferred Issued
3. Hybrid (convertible bonds) issued
4. Retired debt and preferred equity (buybacks / refi's)
Credit is building on Bitcoin.
Digital Credit is building an increasingly impressive track record of successful dividend payments.
135 dividends due. 135 dividends paid.
135 for 135.
Bitcoin holding up this well after the late August rally is an exceptional bull signal for the asset.
When you look at the data, Bitcoin just did something it’s only done twice since 2015.
It reclaimed the short-term holder cost basis after 60+ days underwater, and has held it for 62 days now.
There have been 10 reclaims like this since 2015. But 8 failed within 46 days.
The two that held:
March 2019 → +56% in 1 year, +1,327% in 2 years
January 2023 → +127% in 1 year, +401% in 2 years
Today: $84.6K price vs. $74.7K cost basis (+13.3%), and that floor is rising every day.
Adam Livingston retweeted
Digital Credit is Bitcoin, refined.
2026 YTD annualized volatility:
ASST + MSTR: 95%
Bitcoin: 45%
SATA + STRC: 24%
Same raw material.
Structured finance sends the volatility to the common equity and strips it out of Digital Credit:
Within roughly 48 hours:
JPMorgan formally modeled Bitcoin outperforming traditional asset classes over the long term.
Fidelity published research presenting Bitcoin-backed preferred stock as an emerging capital-market demand channel.
BlackRock pursued another Bitcoin investment product while IBIT experienced exceptional inflows.
Imagine showing a Bitcoiner from October 2023 these headlines.
They would’ve assumed you were crazy.
And now it’s just a random Tuesday.
Adam Livingston retweeted
I'm proud to announce that @Saturn_credit has participated in @Strive's $SATS IPO, allocating directly from our own treasury.
SATS is a cumulative fixed-rate perpetual preferred, junior to $SATA and senior to $ASST, with a 15% annual dividend paid every business day.
We see SATS as a meaningful step forward for digital credit, and over time we're exploring ways to bring instruments like it to our global investor base.
As allocators in the digital equity and credit ecosystem, our team is continually impressed by Strive's rigor around ASST amplification, paired with a willingness to redefine the design space for digital credit. Strive is also exceedingly vocal about its long-term decision-making process and execution strategy, which allowed it to turn the warrant expiry into a showcase of balance sheet expertise and, now, an opportunity for net new capital to gain $BTC exposure through SATS.
We started Saturn on the premise that digital credit is the substrate for Bitcoin's global adoption. Like Strive, our goal is to advance the frontier of Bitcoin's financialization. We saw this firsthand with SATA's daily dividends, and we're excited to see what comes next from Strive, @Strategy, and other issuers as the industry builds toward a 24/7 financial world. In Saturn's case, we advance it by making digital credit accessible around the clock to a global audience, and by expanding the Bitcoin risk-return curve through our digital dollar and yield products.
We look forward to supporting future offerings that move Bitcoin forward. Congratulations @ColeMacro, @Werkman, @PunterJeff, @AdamBLiv, @IIICapital, and the rest of the Strive team.
Note: Saturn's participation in SATS was made from its own treasury and does not affect USDat, sUSDat, or any existing Saturn product or holder.
JP Morgan is giving Bitcoin a 10% CAGR for the next decade as their base case.
This would mean ~$214,000 per Bitcoin in 2036.
Too bearish. But interestingly, the bigger story is that JP Morgan is coming out publicly in saying Bitcoin outperforms stocks, bonds, and gold.
Bitcoin's biggest narrative shift is unfolding before our eyes.
I want to explain something that I think a lot of people are missing about fixed dividends on preferred stock, and why the market price of a preferred matters so much.
A fixed dividend means the dollar amount paid per share is fixed. It does NOT mean the company's cost of raising NEW capital is permanently fixed at that percentage.
Let me give you an example. Imagine two hypothetical Bitcoin treasury companies, each with perpetual preferred stock carrying a $100 stated amount.
Company A pays a 17% fixed dividend, and its preferred trades at $130.
Company B pays a 16% fixed dividend, and its preferred trades at $105.
Now imagine both companies want to raise $130 million through their respective ATM programs.
Company A can issue 1 million shares at $130, creating $17 million in annual dividend obligations. Its effective dividend cost on that new capital is just 13.08%.
Company B has to issue approximately 1.238 million shares at $105, creating $19.81 million in annual dividend obligations. Its effective dividend cost is 15.24%.
The company offering a 17% fixed dividend is raising capital more cheaply than the company offering 16%.
In fact, Company A is saving approximately $2.81 MILLION in annual dividends on the exact same $130 million capital raise.
Now let's take this a step further.
Suppose both companies set aside 18 months of dividends on their newly issued preferred and use the remaining proceeds to buy Bitcoin at $86,400.
Company A can acquire approximately 1,209 BTC.
Company B can acquire approximately 1,161 BTC.
That's roughly 49 additional Bitcoin acquired from the same amount of capital raised, while simultaneously creating $2.81 million less in annual dividend obligations.
When a fixed-rate preferred trades higher, its current yield falls. If the issuer can actually sell additional shares at those higher prices, its effective dividend cost on NEW capital falls as well.
The fixed dividend doesn't change, the amount of capital raised per share does.
Of course, the market price rising doesn't retroactively reduce the cost of capital already raised. And the dividend cost is only one part of the financing economics. Liquidation preferences, issuance expenses, and other contractual rights play into the equation.
When it comes to financing capabilities, the price at which they can issue additional capital relative to the fixed dividend obligation needs to be considered.
That's a fundamental distinction I think investors need to understand when comparing these instruments, especially as Bitcoin treasury companies increasingly use preferred equity to finance Bitcoin accumulation.
The most bullish Bitcoin narrative out there the rest of this decade will be derived from the fact that it is trading more like a debasement trade asset than any other time in its history.
This extended correlation to gold is super interesting to watch play out. Bitcoin now tracks gold considerably more than QQQ.
90-day correlation with BTC:
Gold: 0.54 (97th percentile since 2020)
Nasdaq: 0.37.
Gold was only 0.14 over 2020–25.
On BTC’s -1% days this year, gold also fell >1% 51% of the time.
Before 2026 that was only 13%.
For QQQ: 39% vs 32%.
The market knows that debasement of fiat currency is on the horizon:
New episode of The Hurdle Rate is out!
With the new listing of $SATS, we wanted to do a deep dive on what we've been working on!
Check it out below:
Welcome Back to The Hurdle Rate
Episode 78: Bitcoin Fell, We Grew 6x
In this week’s Hurdle Rate, the crew breaks down the $700M SATS IPO, Strive’s first year as a public company, and growing from 5,886 to 36,818 $BTC through a bear market. They also discuss why $SATS is a 15% fixed rate preferred junior to $SATA, how the $ASST amplification engine was built, and what TradFi investors asked during a high yield selloff.
Here’s the latest with @ColeMacro, @PunterJeff, @Werkman, @IIICapital, and @AdamBLiv.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:54 - Strive’s First Year
06:58 - 6x the Bitcoin in a Bear Market
14:40 - The Amplification Engine
22:18 - The Dream Bear Market
25:22 - Why SATS Is 15% Fixed
34:32 - Designing SATS
42:27 - Treasury Breakeven ARR
46:40 - The Digital Credit Bubble
55:54 - Pricing Through a High Yield Selloff
01:01:13 - What’s Your LTV?
01:06:30 - The 18-Month Dividend Reserve
Adam Livingston retweeted
Strive announces upsized IPO of $SATS to $700M notional, priced at $90 per share.
We'll discuss the details in depth on the next @HurdleRatePod, which will be released when the IPO settles next Tuesday.


















