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Investment Bank Gives Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) Buy Ratings, Flags Bitcoin Treasury Discounts
Investment bank B. Riley has entered the corporate bitcoin treasury sector with formal coverage of two Nasdaq-listed companies, Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Strive, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASST), assigning Buy ratings and price targets of $175 and $12, respectively.
Analyst Fedor Shabalin led the Strive initiation, according to Investing.com The move comes as both stocks trade well below their previous highs, with bitcoin near $70,000.
B. Riley framed the current valuation compression in both companies as an opportunity rather than a structural concern. Strategy shares currently trade at 1.2 times net asset value (NAV), down from a 3.4x peak in 2024.
Strive trades around 0.9 times modified NAV, reflecting early-stage volatility and a discount to the company’s combined bitcoin and asset management value.
Strategy’s market dominance and Strive’s dual engine structureÂ
For Strategy, B. Riley highlights scale and market dominance. The company holds 738,731 BTC, the largest corporate treasury in the world, and has built a digital credit platform spanning six securities, including five series of perpetual preferred stock alongside common equity and convertible notes.
This capital structure allows Strategy to access funding across market cycles.
The company also added 41,002 bitcoin in January 2026 alone and raised $25.3 billion in FY2025 through equity issuance, making it the largest U.S. public issuer for the second consecutive year. Its software subscription business saw Q4 2025 revenue grow 62.1% year over year.
Despite operational progress, MSTR shares have fallen 51.6% over the past year.
Strive operates a dual-engine model, combining a bitcoin treasury of roughly 13,132 BTC with an asset management business overseeing $2.5 billion in assets. The company went public via a reverse merger in September 2025 and completed an all-stock acquisition of Semler Scientific in January 2026, adding a medical device business.
B. Riley highlighted Strive’s strong capital structure and minimal near-term convertible debt, offering predictable cash flows for income-focused investors. ASST shares are down 42.3% year to date and 28.6% over the past month, according to the analysts.
B. Riley’s initiation comes amid a broader pullback in bitcoin and related equities. Bitcoin fell more than 45% from about $126,000 in October 2025 to roughly $69,000 in early March 2026, compressing NAV multiples and slowing equity-driven BTC accumulation.
Each $1,000 move in bitcoin translates to roughly $739 million in treasury value for Strategy and $13.1 million for Strive, underlining the price sensitivity of both firms.
Yesterday, Strategy said they spent a whopping $1.28 billion to buy 17,994 more bitcoin last week, raising its total holdings to 738,731 BTC worth about $50 billion at current prices.
This post Investment Bank Gives Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) Buy Ratings, Flags Bitcoin Treasury Discounts first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
