How to Calculate a Company's BTC Yield

Short answer: BTC Yield is the percentage change in bitcoin holdings per diluted share over a period. You divide the bitcoin holdings by the fully diluted share count, once at the start and once at the end, and compare the two values. If the figure rises by 10%, the BTC Yield is 10%. It is not a yield in the usual sense: nobody pays you anything.

If you read the quarterly reports of Strategy, Metaplanet or Strive, you quickly come across three metrics: BTC Yield, BTC Gain and BTC $ Gain. They sound like interest and profit. They mean something else. Here you learn how the figures are defined, how to recalculate them yourself and why you should not trust them blindly.

What BTC Yield measures

A bitcoin treasury company wants one thing above all: more bitcoin per share. If you hold a share, you own, on paper, a small part of the bitcoin holdings. If that part grows, the company counts it as success, even while the bitcoin price is falling.

BTC Yield measures exactly this growth. It ignores the price of bitcoin and the price of the stock. It only asks: how much bitcoin stands behind one share at the end of the period, compared with the start?

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) introduced the metric in 2024 and has reported it every quarter since. The company's story is told in the profile Strategy stock (MSTR).

The three metrics as Strategy defines them

This is how Strategy defines the metrics in its quarterly reports to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):

Strategy calls the diluted share count "Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding". It includes all issued common shares plus all shares that would be created if every convertible note and every convertible preferred share were converted and every option and employee share award were settled. And that regardless of whether conversion would pay off today.

BTC Gain answers the question: how many additional bitcoin would the company have had to gain without issuing new shares to achieve the same increase per share? BTC $ Gain is the same amount in dollars. Neither is a profit on the balance sheet, and neither is money that arrives anywhere.

Step by step: an example with round numbers

A made-up company holds 1’000 BTC and has 10 million diluted shares. Bitcoin costs $100’000.

The company bought 400 BTC but reports only 166.7 BTC as BTC Gain. The rest belongs to the new shareholders. BTC Gain is the part that reaches the existing shareholders.

Now the same calculation at a different mNAV:

That is the whole mechanism. At an mNAV of 1 the company sells shares at exactly the value of its bitcoin, and shareholders gain nothing. Below that, they lose. How to calculate mNAV yourself and which version counts is explained in mNAV explained.

An example with real numbers: Strategy in the third quarter of 2026

For Strategy we calculated the sats per share at each quarter end from the SEC reports (see the table in mNAV explained). These figures use the shares issued at the time, without convertible notes. They still come close to the official number.

Why negative? Bitcoin fell to around $58’600 by the end of June 2026, and the stock traded below the value of its bitcoin. Strategy still sold new shares to build up a dollar reserve for interest and dividends, and it also sold 6’947 BTC in the first nine months of 2026. Both lower the bitcoin per share.

You can recalculate the current state yourself with the site's data:

Why the diluted share count matters

Imagine a company buys bitcoin with a convertible note. The bitcoin holdings rise immediately. The share count only rises when the noteholders convert, perhaps in five years. If you calculate with today's shares, the purchase looks like free bitcoin. When conversion comes, bitcoin per share suddenly falls.

The diluted share count anticipates that conversion. That is more honest. The same logic applies to convertible preferred stock such as STRK and to employee stock options.

How large the difference can be is shown by Strive (as of 30.10.2026):

With 43’124 BTC, dilution accounts for about 2% here. At companies with many convertible notes it can be much larger. At Capital B the share count grows from 38.5 to 48.0 million after conversion of all notes, an increase of about 25%.

So when comparing, make sure both points in time are calculated with the same method. A BTC Yield that uses diluted shares at the start and undiluted shares at the end is worthless.

The criticism of the metric

BTC Yield is useful for following a treasury company over time. But it has four weaknesses you should know.

1. It is not a yield

Interest or a dividend is money you receive. BTC Yield is a change in a calculated figure. You don't receive a single sat of it. Whether you end up with more also depends on the share price, i.e. on the mNAV. Strategy itself writes in its reports that the metric is not a yield in the traditional sense and says nothing about the ability to pay debt or dividends.

Strategy's mNAV crash shows this: from 30.06.2025 to 31.12.2025, bitcoin per share rose by 1%, while the stock lost 62%.

2. Debt and preferred stock are missing

This is the biggest weakness. The formula divides the entire bitcoin holdings by the shares. Those who rank ahead of shareholders, i.e. noteholders and preferred shareholders, are not deducted.

BTC Yield shows +30%, and shareholders are not a single sat richer. They can only gain if bitcoin later rises faster than the dividends cost. That is leverage, not income.

At Strategy this is not theory. Ahead of the common stock rank convertible notes of $6.71 billion and five preferred stocks totalling around $13.1 billion (as of 06.11.2026). Who ranks ahead and how much bitcoin stands behind each layer is shown in Strategy's capital structure.

Important: this net figure depends on the bitcoin price. If bitcoin falls, more bitcoin is needed to cover the same dollar claims, and net bitcoin per share shrinks. BTC Yield shows none of this.

3. It depends on an mNAV above 1

With new shares, BTC Yield is only positive if the market pays more than the bitcoin value. A high BTC Yield in good years is therefore largely a mirror of investor enthusiasm, not an achievement by management that can be repeated at will. If mNAV falls below 1, the metric turns negative, as it did at Strategy in 2026.

If you buy a stock at an mNAV of 2, you prepay the future BTC Yield. How many years of growth that is, mNAV explained works out.

4. The company chooses the period and the method

BTC Yield is not a metric under accounting standards. Each company defines it itself, and no auditor confirms it the way it confirms reported earnings. A period from January to the day of the announcement looks different after a large capital raise than a full year does. So only compare equal periods and read the definition in the report.

How to check a company's BTC Yield yourself

1. Take the bitcoin holdings at the start and end of the period from the company's announcements.
2. Find the diluted share count at both points in time. If there is none, take the issued shares and add the shares from convertible notes.
3. Calculate bitcoin per share on both days and compare. That is the BTC Yield.
4. Convert debt and preferred stock into bitcoin, deduct them from the holdings and repeat the calculation. That is your net bitcoin per share.
5. Put mNAV next to it. A high BTC Yield at a high mNAV is already in the price.

If you simply want more bitcoin, you can skip this calculation: with bitcoin held directly, your "BTC Yield" is every purchase you make, with no premium and no creditors ahead of you. An overview of all companies of this kind is given in Bitcoin treasury companies.