UPDATED ×2: STRIVE SAYS IT HAS ZERO DEBT AND IT IS TELLING THE TRUTH — 40% OF ITS BITCOIN IS STILL SPOKEN FOR — STRATEGY CARRIES $22 BILLION IN CLAIMS AND LEAVES ITS OWNERS MORE

Debt is a word with a legal meaning, and Strive is using it correctly. It borrowed nothing. It owes no bank. There is no maturity date and nothing that can trigger a margin call. Then it sold 9,073,914 shares of preferred stock at $100 each. That is $907 million that gets paid before common shareholders get anything, standing in front of a pile of bitcoin worth about $1.8 billion. Run the subtraction and 37 cents of every coin is already promised to somebody else. Strategy is the company everybody calls levered. It carries $6.8 billion of convertible notes and $14.8 billion of preferred — $21.5 billion of claims that get paid first. And after the same subtraction, Strategy leaves its common holders a bigger share of its pile than Strive leaves its own. Twenty-two cents claimed against thirty-seven. The stack is thirty-six times larger, so the claims sit lighter on it. Neither company is lying. Both are telling you something true that is not the whole thing. Preferred stock does not show up on the debt line, never comes due, and triggers nothing — and it still gets paid before you do. A promise that never comes due is still a promise, and it is still standing in front of yours. Count what is left after everyone ahead of you is paid. That number has a name, and neither company prints it.