Both put bitcoin exposure inside an ordinary brokerage account. One is a passive trust that charges 0.25% a year and does nothing else. The other is a residual equity claim sitting behind roughly $22 billion of senior securities — and in 2026 that distinction stopped being theoretical.
IBIT gives you bitcoin minus a fee. MSTR gives you what is left of bitcoin after everyone senior to you has been paid. Every other difference on this page is downstream of that sentence.
The axis matters here, so state it plainly: this is not a comparison of a company against a fund. It is a comparison of two ways to hold bitcoin exposure through a brokerage account. Strategy's software business is real — Q2 revenue of $122.4 million, up 6.9% year over year, with subscription services up 54% — but nobody buys MSTR for the software. It appears here only as a measure of whether the company can carry the structure it has built.Form FWP
IBIT is the simpler object. It is a passive trust that holds spot bitcoin in cold storage through Coinbase Custody, values itself against the CF Benchmarks index, and charges 0.25% a year. It is explicitly not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which means it does not carry the protections investors associate with mutual funds.BlackRock
Strategy is a capital-structure machine that happens to own bitcoin. It holds 840,447 BTC, roughly 4.00% of all bitcoin that will ever exist. Sitting ahead of common shareholders are $6.75 billion of convertible notes and $15.24 billion of preferred stock. Strategy's own investor materials describe common equity as the residual layer — the slice that receives whatever economic value remains after those obligations.
Six axes, scored on observable structure rather than merit. Bars grow outward from the centre; the further a bar extends, the more pronounced that characteristic is for that vehicle.
mNAV compares a company's market value with the value of the digital assets it holds. Above 1.0, issuing new shares buys more bitcoin per existing share — the issuance is accretive, and the whole flywheel spins. Below 1.0, new investors receive more bitcoin per dollar than existing holders own, and issuance becomes dilutive.
During the 2024 run, MSTR traded above 2× net asset value. In August 2026 the basic measure sits near 0.71×, with the diluted measure at 0.72×.Bitcoin Treasuries The enterprise measure — which includes debt, cash and preferred stock — sits near 1.01×.
Those two numbers are not in conflict, and the gap between them is the most informative thing on this page. The full capital structure prices at roughly par. The common stock prices at a discount. The market is not saying Strategy's bitcoin is worth less than bitcoin; it is saying the preferred holders own that slice.
One methodological warning, because it will trip up anyone building a chart. Strategy redefined mNAV on July 23, 2026 and now reports the enterprise version by default. Its own filings caution that earlier figures are not comparable. Treat any cross-period mNAV series with suspicion unless you know which definition each point uses.
Strategy's management has indicated it needs roughly 2.5× mNAV before issuing shares to buy bitcoin makes sense. At 0.71× that route is closed. The mechanism that made these vehicles price-insensitive buyers of bitcoin through 2024 and 2025 is not out of favour — it is arithmetically unavailable until the multiple recovers. That is why a compressed premium shows up as a demand story for the whole asset class, not just as a valuation story for one stock.
Interest on debt plus preferred dividends run at approximately $1.736 billion a year. That is about $4.82 million every day, or roughly 528 bitcoin a week at recent prices. It is a hard obligation, and it does not care what bitcoin does.
Against it, Strategy maintains a dedicated dollar reserve, reported at $4.65 billion on August 9 and $4.8 billion on August 17 — roughly 2.7 years of coverage at the current run rate.Form 8-K The company also raised the dividend rate on its STRC preferred to 12.00% per annum and said it does not intend to change that rate until STRC trades at or near its $100 stated amount.
Funding that gap has produced the sequence that defined Strategy's 2026. The company has now disclosed bitcoin sales on five separate occasions: 32 BTC in late May, 3,588 BTC between June 29 and July 5, 1,638 BTC between July 27 and August 2, and 1,690 BTC between August 3 and 9 at an average of $64,262 — below its own average cost basis of roughly $75,385.CCN
Between August 10 and 16 it changed instruments rather than direction: roughly $333.7 million of MSTR shares sold, zero bitcoin bought or sold, with proceeds directed to preferred dividends, STRC repurchases and the dollar reserve.The Block Year-to-date bitcoin yield has fallen to about 1.7%, down from 13.3% in late May.
Management has been explicit that this is a choice rather than a margin call. On CNBC on August 3, CEO Phong Le said the company is not a forced seller of bitcoin. Both things can be true: a company with 2.7 years of reserve coverage is not distressed, and a company selling its core asset below cost to fund dividends is telling you something about its cost of capital.
IBIT's equivalent obligation is the sponsor fee. It is deducted in bitcoin, which is why the amount of BTC backing each share declines slowly and permanently over time. Over ten years, 0.25% annually compounds to roughly 2.5% of your bitcoin. That is the entire recurring cost of the structure, and there is no scenario in which it becomes something else.
With IBIT you own a pro-rata share of a bitcoin pile held by a custodian. The risks are concentrated and identifiable: custody failure at Coinbase Custody, the absence of Investment Company Act protections, and fee drag. There is no counterparty who can decide to sell your bitcoin to pay someone else.
With MSTR you own the residual claim on that same asset class after two layers of senior securities. Strategy's investor briefing frames this as the essential trade-off in its own words: common holders benefit if the company grows bitcoin per share above its cost of credit, and the same structure amplifies the downside because common shareholders rank last and can be diluted when capital is issued on unattractive terms.
The 2026 numbers show what that looks like in practice. Strategy held roughly $58.6 billion of bitcoin against a $38.8 billion market capitalisation. On the bitcoin alone, MSTR should have fallen around 66% over twelve months. It fell about 75%. The extra nine percentage points are the premium collapsing.24/7 Wall St
There is also a structural risk with no ETF equivalent. MSCI has proposed a methodology change targeting non-operating companies, and a simulation using May 2026 data showed Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake being deleted from the MSCI ACWI IMI. Index deletion produces mechanical, price-insensitive selling from passive funds. IBIT is the passive fund; it does not have this problem.
These are not competing products aimed at the same job, which is why "which is better" is the wrong question to ask of them.
Worth noting that neither structure protected anyone in 2026. IBIT's NAV total return was −21.88% year to date as of August 19, and US spot bitcoin ETFs as a group recorded $5.4 billion of net outflows in the first half — the first negative half-year since launch.TFTC A cleaner wrapper is still a wrapper around a falling asset.
Rather than guess at an outcome, here are the specific things that would move this picture. Each is observable, and each has a document or a date attached.
If you want to track one number rather than six, use basic mNAV — the common-equity version, not the enterprise version. It is published, it updates daily, and it is the variable that determines whether Strategy is a buyer of bitcoin or a seller of it. Just confirm which definition your data source is using before you plot it.
mNAV compares a company's market value with the value of the digital assets it holds. Above 1.0, issuing new shares to buy bitcoin adds bitcoin per existing share, so the strategy is self-reinforcing. Below 1.0, new investors receive more bitcoin per dollar than existing holders own, making issuance dilutive. Strategy's basic mNAV was near 0.71 times in August 2026, down from above 2 times during 2024.
The basic measure compares common equity market capitalisation with bitcoin holdings and stood near 0.71 times. The enterprise measure includes debt, cash and preferred stock and stood near 1.01 times. The gap reflects the fact that preferred holders and creditors have claims ranking ahead of common shareholders. Strategy redefined the metric on July 23, 2026 and its filings caution that earlier figures are not directly comparable.
Yes. SEC filings disclose sales on five separate occasions in 2026: 32 BTC in late May, 3,588 BTC between June 29 and July 5, 1,638 BTC between July 27 and August 2, and 1,690 BTC between August 3 and 9 at an average of $64,262. Proceeds funded preferred dividends and share repurchases. Management has stated the company is not a forced seller and maintains a dollar reserve of roughly $4.8 billion against annual obligations of about $1.74 billion.
The sponsor fee is deducted in bitcoin, so the amount of BTC backing each share declines slowly and permanently. At 0.25% a year, the cumulative effect is roughly 2.5% of the underlying bitcoin over a decade. That is the entire recurring cost of the structure; there are no interest payments, dividends or financing obligations attached to it.
They carry different risks rather than different amounts of the same risk. IBIT concentrates risk in custody and in the absence of Investment Company Act of 1940 protections, since it is not registered under that act. MSTR adds the risks of an operating company with senior claims ahead of common shareholders, dependence on open capital markets, and index-inclusion decisions such as the MSCI consultation on non-operating companies. Both fell in 2026: IBIT's NAV total return was negative 21.88% year to date as of August 19.
SignalsDeck publishes market data and educational research. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any asset. This page describes how two structures are built; it does not rank them or suggest that either is suitable for any particular person. Figures are as of the dates stated and change continuously; verify current values against the issuers' own filings and disclosures before relying on them.