Is STRC Back? Apyx's Parker White On What Comes Next and Tokenizing STRC For DeFi

Parker White, founder of Apyx and former Kraken executive and fixed income portfolio manager, argues that Strategy is pioneering a new era of digital banking by systematically working through layers of the credit market, starting with convertible bonds, moving to preferred shares like STRC, and ultimately targeting a AAA rating that would allow 30-year corporate bond issuance at 200 basis points over the 30-year treasury rate. White frames this as a prerequisite for Bitcoin reaching million-dollar price levels, contending that Bitcoin must be fully integrated into credit markets before that scale of capital can flow into it.

STRC was never designed to trade at par at all times and was marketed by Saylor as suitable for cash needed in six to twelve months rather than as a money market equivalent. White acknowledges Strategy's marketing could be improved because many investors entered with wrong expectations. STRC has been trading below par for approximately one and a half months, which White describes as its deepest and longest drawdown, while SATA went below par but has recovered to roughly 97 to 98. White says declaring the STRC narrative dead would require seeing it trade below 98 or 99 for six to twelve months, and suggests the current drawdown could in retrospect mark the cycle bottom, similar to how FTX or Luna marked prior bottoms.

White identifies three pillars needed for STRC recovery: daily dividends, removing the effective 100 dollar price cap, and marketing combined with time to attract new buyers. Monthly dividend windows allow shorts to borrow STRC at roughly 60 basis points and cover before a dividend without meaningful cost, while daily dividends would make shorting significantly more expensive. The price ceiling near 100 exists because Strategy runs an ATM offering at that level and holds a company call provision allowing buyback at 101, limiting upside. White argues Strategy should raise its call level to 110 or 120 and signal willingness to pause ATM issuance to allow upside volatility, pointing to Strive's approach as a model. He estimates 500 million to one billion dollars of capital bought STRC near the top and wants to exit, creating persistent supply pressure that requires new buyers rather than buybacks to absorb. Strategy's USD dividend reserves have recovered from roughly six months to close to 18 months, which White describes as a key confidence indicator, and he would like to see reserves reach 24 months or higher.

On Strategy's convertible debt, White says most put dates fall in mid-2028 with maturities beginning around September 2027, and argues negative sentiment around that schedule comes largely from people lacking the combined traditional finance and crypto background to understand converts markets. Strategy raised approximately one billion dollars from its common ATM in a single week during maximum market panic, and White estimates seven more similar weeks would generate the seven billion dollars needed to retire all converts. Strategy also spent approximately 1.3 billion dollars buying back convertible bonds directly. An OTC desk quoted roughly two to two and a half percent off spot to execute a two billion dollar Bitcoin sale immediately, and a single dark pool transaction of approximately 1.7 to 2 billion dollars of iBit was cited as evidence of market depth. Strategy sold approximately 200 million dollars of Bitcoin and the price rose afterward, which White presents as contradicting the death spiral narrative.

Apyx grew to approximately 400 million in assets under management in about one and a half months and reached a TVL north of 500 million at its peak. It differentiates from other RWA tokenization platforms through a two-token model and permissionless crypto-native packaging without KYC whitelists, holding fully liquid assets with a transparent dashboard. STRC and APXUSD experienced a depeg event driven by a liquidity mismatch between 24-hour crypto markets and market-hours-only underlying assets. White says Apyx underestimated how quickly operational infrastructure needed to be in place, and the company pivoted engineering focus to resiliency, pausing new chain and product expansion while onboarding new market making partners. White estimates roughly 75 percent of resiliency work is complete, with a couple more releases expected to bring that to 95 percent. Apyx executes monthly attestations with Wolf and completed in-kind redemptions with X Stocks to eliminate price risk during the stress event.

White argues DeFi composability is what makes tokenized STRC genuinely useful beyond a standard brokerage account. Integrations with PENDLE allow the floating rate to be stripped into a fixed rate and enable points farming, while Royco provides tranching into senior and junior positions, with senior tranche holders reported to have been fully protected through the recent stress event. STRC is also being used as a payment rail and as an underlying asset for derivatives. White expects most major Bitcoin treasury companies to eventually issue variable-rate non-convertible preferred shares similar to STRC, and anticipates Bitmine will move from its current fixed-rate preferred to a variable-rate version. He predicts the next one to two years will be strong for RWAs, digital credit, and on-chain activity broadly, framing the longer-term prize as the tens of trillions of dollars currently locked in traditional credit markets.