pledgePark value in dollars — read the claim first.
14 Bitcoin-linked stablecoins and dollar-products. Yield is not Bitcoin. Stability depends on backing, controls, and exit liquidity. We sort by risk-first, not by APY.
New: Digital Credit, explained — by people who don’t issue it →
Strategy STRCStrategy STRFStrategy STRKAll three top picks are Strategy Inc. preferred stock — treat as correlated single-issuer exposure, not a diversified top 3.
+ 11 more products reviewedSee full ranking ↓STRC is a listed Strategy preferred security, not a stablecoin or a redeemable Bitcoin product.
How to read a Digital Credit product.
This corner of the site is dense with jargon. So let us walk one real product, top to bottom, in plain English. We will use STRC — the most-traded product we track — and tie every term to a number you will actually see on its page.
The one-line version: it is a company share that pays a changing cash dividend, trades like a stock, and rises and falls with Bitcoin — without ever being Bitcoin.
Read the full Digital Credit guide →- It is a security, not a stablecoin
STRC is not a digital dollar you can redeem for $1. It is a share in a company (Strategy Inc.) that you buy and sell through a normal brokerage. Its price moves.
- “Backing class” — what stands behind it
STRC’s backing class is preferred stock. In plain terms that means you own a slice of preferred stock — a senior share in a company that pays a set dividend before ordinary shareholders get anything. You do not own Bitcoin, and you have no direct claim on Strategy’s Bitcoin.
Backing class: preferred stock - The dividend — the income it pays
A dividend is a cash payment to holders. STRC’s is variable: Strategy sets the rate each month at its own discretion (with a floor tied to short-term interest rates), so the income can change.
11.50% current annual dividend (variable) - “Effective yield” — and why it differs
You will see 12.98% quoted as the effective yield. That is higher than the 11.50% dividend rate for one simple reason: the share trades below its $100 stated value, so the same dividend buys more income per dollar you actually pay. This is NOT Bitcoin going up — it is just arithmetic on a discounted price.
12.98% effective yield - It still moves with Bitcoin
Even though you do not own Bitcoin, STRC tends to move in the same direction as it. Its price is 61% correlated to Bitcoin (100% would mean lockstep, 0% unrelated). When Bitcoin falls, expect this to feel it too.
61% correlated to Bitcoin - “Return of capital” — read the tax line
Strategy has no taxable profits to pay dividends from, so for US tax these payments are treated as return of capital: you are partly being handed back your own money, not earning a normal taxable dividend. It lowers what you paid in, rather than counting as income — a real difference at tax time.
Tax treatment: return of capital - “Preferred waterfall” — who gets paid first
If Strategy ever ran short, holders get paid in a fixed order called the waterfall — lenders first, then preferred shares by seniority, ordinary shareholders last. STRC sits second among Strategy’s preferred shares (behind STRF). Higher in the waterfall is safer; it is not a guarantee.
Waterfall rank: #2 of the preferred stack (behind STRF)
What is this really backed by?
Stablecoins look interchangeable until you read the source documents. The structural backing class matters more than the headline yield — a 13% preferred-stock dividend and a 13% protocol-yield wrapper carry very different risk profiles.
Issuer concentration: 5 of these 14 are Strategy Inc. preferreds — treat their issuer risk as correlated, not diversified.
Direct preferred-equity claim on the issuer. Dividend backed by issuer credit + reserves.
Yield variant or wrapper layered on top of a preferred-stock claim. Adds protocol risk.
Tokenized US treasuries or cash reserves. The classic peg-aiming structure.
The best-backed dollar is not the highest-paying one.
Backing quality (the X-axis) scores how enforceable and provable the claim behind a dollar is — direct Bitcoin reserves and senior preferred stock score high; layered wrappers score low. It is the single heaviest factor in our model (25%).
The picture: the strongest-backed products — Mezo's BTC-reserve dollar, Money On Chain, Hermetica — publish no headline yield at all (the lane below the axis). The spicy 13–16% yields sit at mid backing quality. The strong-backing-and-high-yield corner, top-right, is empty.
Bitcoin-beta dressed as a dividend.
Each cell is how tightly a preferred moves with that benchmark. The pattern is the point: high correlation to BTC and MSTR, much lower to the broad market (SPY). A “fixed dividend” label does not buy you market diversification — the price still tracks Bitcoin.
STRK is the most Bitcoin-correlated of the stack — it carries the MSTR conversion option, so it behaves part-preferred, part-equity.
Higher yield always means higher risk —
except for the upper-right.
Each dot is one tracked product. X-axis is the current effective dividend yield. Y-axis is the Pledge score (higher = lower risk). The picture: products clustering top-right give you the most yield for the safety taken. Strategy preferreds sit there because the dividend is paid by a credit claim, not by a yield-farming engine.
The highest yield is the least calm.
Each dot is one Strategy preferred. X is how much its price actually moved over 30 days; Y is the effective dividend yield. Dot size is 30-day trading volume (liquidity). The top-left is the sweet spot — a high payout for very little price movement: STRC sits there, the calmest and by far the deepest-traded. STRD pays the most, but only because it carries roughly 3x STRC's volatility on a fraction of the liquidity. Everything above the dashed line is the premium you are paid for taking that price risk over cash.
A headline yield is a risk-free base plus a premium.
Every yield splits into the 3.67% risk-free rate (what cash earns) and the spread— the part you're actually paid for taking each product's issuer, structure, and peg risk. A bigger spread is a bigger bet, not free money.
Sorted by risk score — higher = lower risk.
Backing source and peg design carry the heaviest weights. Yield-bearing products always carry an explicit risk premium.
Why these 3 specifically?
Strategy STRCStrategy STRFStrategy STRKBacking source, peg design, claim ladder, exit, counterparty, governance, transparency, yield source.
We never sort by APY. Yield always comes with a risk premium we make explicit.
Across reserve-backed, dividend-backed, and yield-wrapped designs.
Stablecoin-adapted methodology, published.