Should Bitcoin Companies Build USD Reserves? Understanding The Truth

Strategy's U.S. dollar reserve has reached $4.65 billion, up from $3.75 billion two weeks earlier. It has also sold almost 7,000 BTC since late June 2026.

Many are wondering why a company built around accumulating Bitcoin would choose to hold billions of dollars in fiat. More importantly, should other Bitcoin businesses do the same?

Strategy holds cash because it's in a very unique position

Strategy increasingly operates as an issuer of Digital Credit: preferred securities backed economically by an enormous Bitcoin balance sheet. These instruments create fixed dollar dividends obligations.

Bitcoin produces no cash flow. Strategy's software business produces far too little cash to cover its capital structure.

Traditional credit analysis compounds the problem. S&P assigned Strategy a B- rating in October 2025, citing its Bitcoin concentration, weak dollar liquidity, and very weak risk-adjusted capital. Under S&P's methodology, Bitcoin is effectively excluded from the capital base used for this analysis because of its market risk.

In our coverage of the S&P rating, we specifically mentioned that a cash reserve, amongst other things, was worth exploring to improve credit ratings.

Strategy therefore holds dollars to support its credit issuance. That is literally the whole reason.

More dollar liquidity can improve the perceived safety of its preferred securities, broaden investor demand, and potentially lower its cost of capital---in the eyes of credit ratings agencies.

The cash still carries an economic cost. Excess capital should produce a return. A conventional company can reinvest it, repurchase shares, or distribute it. A Bitcoin company can buy more Bitcoin. Every dollar held in cash replaces potential positive returns with guaranteed negative real returns.

Strategy accepts that cost because its business model depends on issuing more credit. Three unusual conditions exist at once: Bitcoin dominates its balance sheet, rating agencies heavily penalize that Bitcoin exposure, and management intends to keep issuing Digital Credit.

All three conditions are pretty unique individually and it is exactly the combination of all three that creates the situation where they need to hold cash. For instance, if Strategy did not want to issue credit, then it wouldn't need the cash.

The economic consequence of cash reserves

The math creates some glaring problems with cash reserves.

Suppose Strategy issues $100 of preferred stock carrying a 10% annual dividend and holds three years of dividend coverage in cash. It must reserve $30 and can deploy only $70 into Bitcoin.

The preferred still costs $10 per year. The $70 invested into Bitcoin must therefore generate:

$10 ÷ $70 = 14.29%

A stated 10% cost of capital becomes a 14.29% hurdle rate on the capital actually deployed. The reserve raises the required return by 42.9%. Interest earned on the cash reduces the hurdle somewhat, but the structural drag remains.

The true hurdle is actually higher, however, because BTC's volatility means it will heavily underperform the hurdle rate in some years, and these years still require the dividends to be paid (here I am assuming that dividends are not skipped). So aside from the cash drag, there is also a volatility drag imposed by attempting to amplify a volatile asset. This risk must be compensated for by adjusting the hurdle rate higher.

The larger the required reserve, the less of every new dollar reaches Bitcoin. If Bitcoin appreciation fails to exceed this higher hurdle over time, common shareholders bear the cost.

However, cash is far from useless. Cash creates useful optionality. It can cover dividends and interest during Bitcoin drawdowns, reducing the risk of forced Bitcoin sales. It can also support opportunistic repurchases of securities when they trade below their stated value.

Strategy recently did exactly that. In late July, it paid $25 million for $28.89 million of STRC stated value, a 13.47% discount. It later used $108.6 million from Bitcoin sales to retire another 1.15 million STRC shares. Buying preferred stock below par removes more senior claims and future dividend obligations than the cash spent. It is also accretive to Net Bitcoin Per Share.

Should Bitcoin companies accumulate cash or bitcoin?

For most Bitcoin companies, cash needs should be tied to the operating business rather than to an arbitrary reserve target---consider that Strategy literally does not know how much reserves it needs to get a better rating or for more credit investors to become interested in STRC.

A cash-flowing company usually has a good understanding of its cash outlay. It should hold enough dollars to cover payroll, taxes, debt service, vendor payments, near-term capital expenditures, and a reasonable buffer for volatility in operating cash flow.

The right reserve depends on the stability of those cash flows. A profitable business with recurring revenue, low fixed costs, and predictable expenses can operate with a smaller buffer. A cyclical or capital-intensive business needs more. The reserve should rise because the business requires liquidity, not because management simply wants a large cash balance.

Once operating needs and a prudent liquidity buffer is covered, additional cash needs a specific economic purpose. Otherwise it dilutes returns by generating a large opportunity cost. For any company, excess capital should compete directly against the company's hurdle rates, repurchasing undervalued shares, reducing expensive liabilities, or investing in projects that can earn a higher return.

In conclusion, Strategy is a very, very rare case. Its cash reserve exists only because it is building a large credit issuance business on top of a Bitcoin balance sheet while credit ratings agencies impose significant institutional inertia which treats legitimate, liquid assets as zero value. Companies without that liability structure---which is basically all other companies---have far less reason to accumulate dollars beyond their working capital buffer.