Michael Saylor used his keynote speech at Strategy World 2026 on Feb. 25 to argue that Bitcoin-backed “digital debt” goes beyond Wall Street’s rolling papers and into scalable distribution on crypto rails, naming Solana and Ethereum as part of that future. The pitch is important because it pushes Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury model into a broader concept of the product: use Bitcoin as the basis of capital, and then package the debt, yield and liquidity of companies, retail investors and finally tokens in the markets.
Bitcoin Capital, Credit Product
Saylor built Bitcoin as the foundation of the stack and Stretch’s Stretch (STRC) as the layer of credit it was built upon. In his words, the company’s business is no longer just accumulating Bitcoin, but “converting capital into debt” by using long-term capital structures to reduce cash flow to volatile assets and deliver them as a low-yield product.
“What does Strategy do? Our company turns capital into debt. We turn economic wealth into a stream of income,” Saylor said. “You need an active company to take part of the economic power and turn it into money, monetize it, remove risk, reduce volatility, generate cash flow in the form of yield and compress time to date.”
That draft is at the center of his STRC lawsuit. Saylor said Strategy got there only after working with what he described as long-term leverage, from swaps and margin loans to senior debt, junior debt, convertibles and preferred structures.
The important variable, in his opinion, is not only the growth of the subject, but the “determined length of time” of the capital, how long the company can rely on it before the agreements, marketing pressure to the market or the pressure of refinancing force the problem.
He argued that alternative preferred debt offers the best short-term trade-off for common equity because it increases choice and reduces the risk of default during the downsizing.
Saylor also made a simple case for the value of digital debt. The strategy, he said, uses three internal metrics: average BTC, or collateral coverage; BTC risk, the probability that the security will be below the required levels at the end of the term; and the implied credit spread required to compensate investors. He compared the current rates of 78 basis points for investment-grade bonds and 288 basis points for high-yield debt to what he said digital debt could deliver if Bitcoin compounded faster than traditional assets.
His model relies heavily on a positive view of Bitcoin’s long-term profitability. If Bitcoin appreciates 30% a year, says Saylor, large amounts of investment-grade credit can be created against it. If Bitcoin goes nowhere, the same structure starts to look like a distressed loan.
He used recent performance to sharpen that distinction. Since Bitcoin’s peak four and a half months ago, Saylor said, Bitcoin has fallen 45%, while STRC has lost “0% of its value” and paid a 4.5% dividend on the decline. That, he said, is a commercial opening: provide a less volatile production tool for consumers looking for a Bitcoin-connected economy without directly owning the asset.
Solana and Ethereum as a Distribution Channel
The most important turning point of the key note came when Saylor described digital credit as “programmable.” He didn’t use the word sparingly.
“Organization means that I take a loan and I create. I turn it into a token, a private fund, a public fund, an ETF, an ETP. I make a bank account. I make a crypto account,” he said. “Then I put it on the platform – NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, Solana, Ethereum, Binance, Coinbase Base. There are many different platforms that I can put it on.”
BREAKING: Michael Saylor says the future of programmable digital credit will be implemented in Solanapic.twitter.com/F4scOmDaU3
— Solana (@solana) February 25, 2026
He went further, arguing that once credit is packaged as a modular product, issuers can fine-tune flexibility, liquidity, payment periods, payment frequency and currency exposure. In that framework, Solana and Ethereum are not capital bases (Bitcoin remains so in Saylor’s model) but potential avenues to distribute tokenized versions of the credit product.
That leaves Strategy with more ambition than simply selling preferred stock. Saylor said the company aims to deepen STRC liquidity and balance the underlying asset base, while partners build “digital currency” and “digital products” around it.
If that thesis holds, Strategy is betting that Bitcoin-backed debt can move from the public marketplace to the product category that includes platforms including brokerages, ETFs and on-chain ecosystems.
At press time, Solana traded at $86.97.
Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
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