[Digital Today reporter Yoonseo Lee] Asset manager Strive bought an additional 21 bitcoin, increasing its total holdings to 19,921 BTC.

On July 20 (local time), blockchain outlet Bitcoin Magazine reported that Strive bought bitcoin from July 13 to 17 at an average price of $63,221 per coin, with a total purchase of about $1.3 million. The purchase lifted Strive's bitcoin holdings to 19,921 BTC from 19,900 BTC.

Cash and cash equivalents also rose over the same period. As of July 17, cash increased by $3.3 million to $157.4 million from $154.1 million. The company deployed the funds for the purchase as its financial position improved.

Still, the pace of recent purchases has slowed somewhat compared with spring. Strive previously increased its holdings rapidly to above 19,000 BTC. Strive, which is listed on Nasdaq, also runs a floating-rate Series A perpetual preferred stock, SATA, alongside its Class A common stock ticker ASST.

There were also changes in share counts. Class A shares outstanding rose by 443,797 to 73,869,961 from 73,426,164. That reflected issuance from the company's at-the-market share-sale programme. Class B shares fell by 3,335 to 9,800,012, while SATA remained unchanged at 7,829,502 shares.

Strive also disclosed its holdings of Strategy's floating-rate Series A perpetual Stretch preferred stock, STRC. The number of shares held was unchanged at 505,000 on all reporting dates, but the fair value fell by $1.1 million to $43.1 million as of July 17.

Matt Cole (맷 콜), Strive's chief executive officer, has repeatedly stressed the company's stance on buying bitcoin. He has described Strive as an aggressive buyer and said it would continue to buy bitcoin on a large scale. The company is raising funds for purchases by using perpetual preferred stock capital instead of convertible bonds, and Cole has explained that this structure is designed to prevent forced selling.

Strive's current structure was created after a merger. The company listed through the combination of Strive Asset Management and Asset Entities, then built a bitcoin treasury strategy. It later acquired Semler Scientific through an all-share exchange and incorporated the bitcoin that company held. After shareholder approval, the deal was completed around January, taking combined holdings to more than 12,000 BTC.

But expansion also brought costs. Strive posted a loss of $393.0 million in the first 6 months after listing, reflecting bitcoin accounting treatment and the impact of share issuance.

The company has also laid out plans to secure a larger pool of capital for purchases. Management is targeting funding capacity of $4.2 billion for additional bitcoin buying. The current model rapidly converts funds raised by issuing shares in the open market into bitcoin. The company said it would use this to limit dilution while increasing bitcoin exposure per share.

Strive also listed general risk factors related to its outlook. These included Semler risks, digital asset volatility, interest rates and potential dilution from additional share sales. The company also said it could adjust SATA's dividend rate during the management of the preferred stock.

Strive's latest purchase was not large, but it maintained its approach of continuing to increase bitcoin holdings based on rising cash and its share issuance structure. With expanded holdings, its funding structure and accounting losses all laid out, the operating method and burden of its bitcoin treasury strategy were confirmed at the same time.