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Adam Back, the cypherpunk legend whose work is literally cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper, is building what he calls the “Berkshire Hathaway of Bitcoin.” His company, Bitcoin Standard Treasury (BSTR), plans to generate conservative returns on its Bitcoin holdings using traditional capital market strategies, not the kind of DeFi yield chasing that has historically ended in tears.
The company is set to debut with approximately 30,021 BTC, valued at over $3B, and has secured billions more in financing commitments to keep buying. If the plan works, BSTR could become one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury vehicles on the planet.
How BSTR plans to make Bitcoin work harder
The company plans to use conventional capital market tools like covered options writing and market making to squeeze yield out of its Bitcoin stack. In English: instead of just holding BTC and hoping the number goes up, BSTR would sell options contracts against its holdings to collect premiums, and facilitate trades in Bitcoin markets to capture spreads.
Covered call writing generates income by selling someone the right to buy your asset at a higher price. You collect the premium upfront. The trade-off is capping your upside if Bitcoin moons past the strike price.
What BSTR explicitly will not do is wade into DeFi protocols. Back’s approach prioritizes low counterparty risk and security.
The numbers behind the launch
BSTR’s initial Bitcoin reserve comes from two sources. Founding team members, including Back and affiliates of Blockstream Capital, are contributing roughly 25,000 BTC. An additional 5,021 BTC comes through a Bitcoin-denominated PIPE.
BSTR has secured $400 million in common equity PIPE financing and $575 million in convertible notes carrying a 1% coupon. There’s also $300 million in preferred equity with a 7% coupon committed for the treasury.
The company aims to raise up to $1.5B for further Bitcoin purchases after listing. The plan is to go public on Nasdaq through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners I (CEPO), though the shareholder vote on that deal has been pushed back to July 2, 2026.
Why this matters for Bitcoin’s institutional trajectory
Back has been clear that BSTR has no intention of diversifying into other digital assets. This is a Bitcoin-only operation. That positioning differentiates BSTR from crypto-native funds that hold baskets of tokens, and from companies like MicroStrategy (now Strategy) that primarily buy and hold without generating yield on their stack.
The risk is that covered call strategies underperform in a strong bull market. If Bitcoin rips 50% in a quarter, BSTR’s upside would be partially capped by the options it sold. Back is effectively betting that steady, predictable returns will attract more capital than raw Bitcoin exposure alone.
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