OnRamp is out with a report today and it's somewhat blunt:

Strategy has released AI-generated advertising featuring a young, attractive model in a tropical setting, implying that a retail investor can retire and live comfortably on STRC’s 11.5% yield. This framing implies something approaching money-market-fund risk, attached to an 11.5% yield, backed by Bitcoin. The reality is that these instruments are speculative-grade corporate credit with no maturity date, sold to investors who, in most cases, do not perform the kind of credit analysis that this type of security demands.

Per Strategy’s own disclosure and consistent with other public reporting, approximately 80% of STRC holders are retail investors. On an $8.5 billion outstanding base, that is roughly $7 billion of retail capital concentrated in a single unsecured, subordinated, perpetual preferred equity instrument, issued by a B-minus rated company whose cash obligations exceed its revenue by a factor of more than three. STRC is not alone. Strive has launched SATA, now paying 13.00% (raised from 12.75% on April 15, 2026). Together, approximately $15 billion in what is now being branded as "Digital Credit" sits across two issuers.

And they have such strong feelings they put the thesis in a bold heading:

On every risk-adjusted and structural dimension, and on raw dollars at the Bitcoin CAGRs Strategy and Strive themselves assume, the simpler trade is structurally superior to STRC.On every risk-adjusted and structural dimension, and on raw dollars at the Bitcoin CAGRs Strategy and Strive themselves assume, the simpler trade is structurally superior to STRC.

What follows are ~70 pages (did it really need to be 77 pages?) of STRC and MSTR takedown.

If the holder believes Bitcoin will compound strongly (25%+ CAGR, as Strategy and Strive themselves publicly assume), the simpler trade captures that upside uncapped while STRC hard-caps participation at 11.5%.

If the holder believes Bitcoin will be volatile or stagnant, STRC’s path dependency becomes lethal. The simpler trade is entirely terminal-value dependent: Treasuries pay contractually regardless of what Bitcoin does, and the Bitcoin sleeve only needs to show up at the terminal point. STRC, by contrast, depends on continuous access to capital markets, continuous maintenance of the par price, continuous willingness of new investors to fund old investors’ dividends. Sustained mid-period stress can permanently impair STRC even if Bitcoin ultimately recovers.

If the holder believes Bitcoin will simply offer 10-15% CAGR, STRC’s absolute best case, dividends paid in full forever, par preserved forever, can produce more raw terminal dollars than the simpler trade. We acknowledge this openly. Our credit model (see Quantifying the Risk) shows that at 15% CAGR, formal default is rare (approximately 9%), but the probability of at least one forced Bitcoin sale within a single 8-year cycle is approximately 46% as is the probability of sustained terminal-price impairment below $85. Applied across a 24-year horizon, the cumulative probability of at least one significant stress event is illustratively in the 80-85% range under a simplifying assumption of cycle independence. And even when the STRC best case holds, it does so with path dependency, counterparty risk, custody risk, and a growing tax liability that the simpler trade does not carry. On a risk-adjusted basis, and on every non-wealth dimension (custody sovereignty, re-ladderability, tax optionality, structural transparency), the simpler trade remains superior.

OnRamp offers something called multi-institutional custody (basically, make a multisig and give one key each to several different institutions. It's not a scheme I like, but I imagine they are feeling a little pain from STRC gobbling up all the retail people. So, they have a little incentive to come off strong here:

The whole thing gets a little repetitive, but given the bonkers nature of all the people piling into STRC and friends makes one feel that such repetition is warranted.