Anyone who wanted Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) exposure without handling a wallet has had two mainstream options since January 2024. You could buy a fund that holds the coin for you, or you could buy shares in a company that borrows money to buy far more of it.
Both were sold as Bitcoin bets, and in 2026 they have behaved like very different investments. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ:IBIT) is down 26% for the year, while Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR | MSTR Price Prediction) has lost about 34%.
So which one held up better, and which is the smarter hold from here?
IBIT Has Held Up Better Than MSTR in 2026
Strategy’s own website describes MSTR as “amplified Bitcoin,” meaning the stock is built to move further than the coin on the way up or down. In 2026 that amplification has only worked against holders.
The MSTR stock closed at $100.01 on Friday, August 7, which leaves it down about 34% for the year and 75% over the past twelve months. Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) has not fallen anywhere near that much, so shareholders lost far more than the coin the company is built around.
BlackRock’s IBIT works differently, since the fund simply holds Bitcoin and charges 0.25% a year to look after it. That means the fund goes wherever the coin goes, and it closed the same day at $36.80 with $48.51 billion in net assets, down 26% in 2026 and 43.9% over twelve months. Bitcoin itself is down about the same 43.9% since last August, and it trades near $64,848 today.
So IBIT investors lost what Bitcoin lost, while MSTR investors lost a lot more. The MSTR stock is eight points behind IBIT in 2026, and 31 points behind over the past twelve months.
Why MSTR Lost More Than Bitcoin Did
Strategy owns 842,138 Bitcoin, and that pile is worth $58.6 billion today. The whole company is only valued at $38.8 billion, so every dollar of MSTR stock has about $1.50 of Bitcoin behind it. That is the amplification Strategy advertises, and it cuts both ways, handing shareholders bigger gains when Bitcoin climbs and bigger losses when it falls.
Bitcoin has fallen 44% over the past twelve months, and at $1.50 of Bitcoin per dollar of stock, that should have cost MSTR shareholders around 66%. But they lost 75% instead, so the nine points were from somewhere else.
Investors have also stopped paying a premium for MSTR, and that is where those nine points went. They once paid far more for the stock than the Bitcoin behind it was worth, and that markup shows up as mNAV, which compares the company’s market value to its Bitcoin once debt and preferred stock are taken out. The multiple has dropped to 1.07x from more than 2x during the 2024 bull run, so the extra people were once willing to pay has almost gone.
Losing the premium costs Strategy more than a share price. Management treats 2.5x mNAV as the level it needs before it can issue new shares and buy Bitcoin with the money, and at 1.07x that route is closed. So between July 27 and August 2 the company sold 1,638 BTC for $104.73 million to help cover its preferred dividends and buy back STRC shares, and its second-quarter results carried an $8.22 billion net loss, mostly unrealized markdowns on the Bitcoin it already holds.
What You Own With MSTR and IBIT
An IBIT share gets you Bitcoin and nothing else. The fund holds the coin, charges 0.25% a year, and owns roughly 3.72% of Bitcoin’s total market value, with $48.51 billion in net assets and $61.17 billion of cumulative inflows since it launched in January 2024. It owes nothing to anybody, so the only way you lose money is if Bitcoin falls.
An MSTR share gets you more Bitcoin for your dollar, and Strategy charges shareholders nothing to hold it. The company owns 4.01% of every Bitcoin that will ever exist, which is more than IBIT holds.
But you take on the company along with the coins. Those shares carry $6.75 billion of debt, $15.35 billion of preferred stock, and $1.749 billion a year in interest and dividends that has to be paid whether Bitcoin rises or falls, against a $4 billion cash reserve. Strategy paid around $75,540 a coin on average, so the treasury is underwater at today’s price.
That bill is also what makes the fee-free pitch misleading. Paying $1.749 billion a year out of a company worth $38.8 billion works out at about 4.5% annually, which is eighteen times what IBIT charges. Strategy covers it by issuing new shares, so existing holders pay through a smaller slice of the company rather than a fee.
On top of all that, MSTR shareholders carry one more risk that IBIT holders do not. MSCI decides which stocks belong in the indexes that trillions of dollars of funds track, and it is still weighing whether companies like Strategy qualify. If it removes MSTR, every fund following those indexes has to sell automatically, and Polymarket traders now put the chance of that happening by December 31 at 73%, up 23 points.
Which Bitcoin Bet Is Better Now, MSTR or IBIT?
If you just want Bitcoin exposure, IBIT is the simpler way to get it. You own the coin without the wallet, you pay 0.25% a year, and the only thing that can hurt you is the Bitcoin price falling.
MSTR is a different bet, and it suits some investors. The same $1.50 of Bitcoin per dollar of stock that cost shareholders 75% this year works the same way when Bitcoin climbs, so a recovery would lift MSTR faster than the fund. Some Wall Street analysts expect that recovery too, with Cantor Fitzgerald cutting its MSTR price target to $186 in early August, and Barclays cutting its forecast to $125, both of which are well above where MSTR trades today.
But with MSTR, two things have to go right instead of one. Bitcoin has to recover, which is what every BTC holder is waiting for anyway, and investors have to start paying a premium for Strategy again. That second one is the harder call, because it depends on whether the market decides a Bitcoin treasury is worth more than the Bitcoin inside it.
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