Allied Architects' Financial Strategy to Survive Bitcoin 'Winter'

Allied Architects Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Chairman of the Board: Yuji Tanaka; Securities Code: 6081; hereinafter 'the Company'), which realizes corporate growth through the power of AX, announces that it plans to start asset management this month using 'Apyx', a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by preferred shares and other assets issued by Strategy Co., listed on the US NASDAQ.

This initiative is positioned as the first step in the Company's new portfolio strategy centered on 'on-chain finance-related stocks'. The Company anticipates the arrival of an era where all assets—stocks, bonds, real estate, IP, etc.—are traded 24/7 on-chain (recorded on a blockchain). Apyx, which has on-chainized preferred shares and sublimated them into a yield-bearing stablecoin, is considered a pioneering example of this trend.

The Company announced its investment in Apyx in February 2026. Going forward, the Company plans to leverage the knowledge gained through this operation to develop digital asset introduction and management support services for companies and investors, in compliance with Japanese regulations.

■ Launching In-House Management of Yield-Bearing Stablecoin 'Apyx' Amidst Bitcoin 'Winter'

The Company will begin operations to generate continuous dollar-denominated income by holding 'apyUSD', a yield-bearing token offered by Apyx.

Apyx is designed with a two-layer structure: a base token 'apxUSD' and a yield-bearing token 'apyUSD'. The operational flow is as follows:

The Company deposits USDC, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, and receives the base token 'apxUSD'.

Apyx uses the received funds to purchase preferred shares of Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies (such as Strategy Co.'s 'STRC' and Strive Co.'s 'SATA').

Dividends are generated from the preferred shares.

The Company receives the yield-bearing token 'apyUSD' by locking (depositing) 'apxUSD'. The design results in a higher annual percentage yield when fewer holders lock their tokens, as the dividend share increases.

Apyx targets an annual yield of 13% using its proprietary model. The Apyx operation will be conducted through Allied Verse Pte. Ltd. ('Allied Verse'), a 100% subsidiary of Allied Architects based in Singapore. Apyx is a project led by the team at DeFi Development Corp. (DeFi Corp.), a NASDAQ-listed digital asset management company. DeFi Corp. is a specialized team with deep expertise in both capital markets and digital asset management, and it invested in the Company in April 2026.

■ The Source of Yield: Strategy Co.'s Preferred Shares 'STRC', Dubbed 'Bitcoin 2.0'

The source of Apyx's yield is the high-yield preferred shares 'STRC (Stretch)' issued by Strategy Co. (formerly MicroStrategy), listed on the US NASDAQ. The price of STRC is designed to trade around $100, offering no expectation of capital appreciation, but it recorded an annual yield of 11.5% at the time of writing.

STRC is a mechanism that provides investors with yield generated from a new capital structure collateralized by Bitcoin. It represents an attempt to evolve Bitcoin from a 'hold-only asset' to a 'yield-generating asset', earning it the moniker 'Bitcoin 2.0'.

Currently, Bitcoin is trading about 40% below its all-time high recorded in October 2025, and the market is said to have entered a 'winter' phase of stagnation. In such a situation, the Company believes that a financial strategy of merely holding Bitcoin is not rational. The key difference from the traditional 'direct Bitcoin holding aimed solely at capital gains' is the ability to generate continuous income even during periods of stagnant Bitcoin prices. By holding apyUSD, the Company gains access to the preferred shares of the publicly traded company with the world's largest Bitcoin holdings and captures this income.

STRC Fundraising Scale and Bitcoin Purchases

STRC is a variable-rate perpetual preferred share issued in July 2025, serving as the core of Strategy Co.'s fundraising.

Since the beginning of 2026, Strategy Co. has issued approximately $5 billion worth of STRC in the first four months.

These raised funds have been used for additional Bitcoin purchases, bringing the company's Bitcoin holdings to 818,334 BTC (valued at approximately 10 trillion yen) as of May 2026.

Yield Level

Dividends on STRC are paid monthly in cash, with an annual dividend rate of 11.5% as of May 2026. This has been gradually increased from the initial rate of about 9% to stimulate investor demand.

Despite the Bitcoin 'winter', Strategy Co. has continued to pay monthly cash dividends for 10 consecutive months since the first STRC dividend payment in August 2025, up to the time of this release.

*The above represents Strategy Co.'s views and does not guarantee future dividend payments or yield levels.

■ Self-Management of Assets via Self-Custody Wallet, Audit and Security Framework Established

In this operation, the Company will self-manage its crypto assets using a self-custody wallet. Concurrently, it will establish an audit and security framework to ensure the safety of the managed assets.

The Close Relationship Between Self-Custody Wallets and DeFi (Decentralized Finance)

A self-custody wallet refers to a wallet where the holder manages the private keys necessary for asset management themselves, without entrusting them to an exchange or a third-party custodian. In this operation, the Company's subsidiary, Allied Verse, as a corporate entity, will 'manage its own keys by itself'.

Self-custody wallets are essential for using DeFi. This is because, to use DeFi, a financial system without a central administrator, Allied must connect directly to the protocol and perform operations such as depositing and locking assets.

Apyx is a type of DeFi that enables on-chain trading of STRC and other assets. The entire sequence of operations—depositing assets into Apyx, receiving apyUSD, and capturing yield—is predicated on the user managing their own keys via a self-custody wallet. These operations in DeFi are all recorded on the blockchain (on-chain) and processed by smart contracts (programs that automatically execute under predefined conditions).

In traditional finance, multiple intermediaries such as banks, securities companies, custodians, and clearing houses are involved in each step of a transaction, each taking fees and spreads—a structure often referred to as 'middleman skimming'. In DeFi, because smart contracts automatically process transactions without these intermediaries, the costs that would have been paid to intermediaries are reduced, making it easier for these savings to be returned to users as yield.

On the other hand, confidentiality...