When Strive, the investment firm co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, announced in 2024 it was moving its headquarters to Dallas, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was quoted in the press release.
“I welcome Strive to our great state and look forward to working with them to create more jobs, spur innovation, and bring new investments to Dallas and the entire state of Texas,” Abbott said in the company’s announcement. The firm said it would focus on “integrating Bitcoin into standard portfolios of everyday Americans.”
Since then, Strive has become one of the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin in the country, and a federal judge has allowed a former employee’s whistleblower lawsuit to move forward against the company and Ramaswamy personally. The case accuses the firm’s leaders of pushing employees to break securities rules and firing her when she objected.
Strive’s rise tracks Texas’ own bet on cryptocurrency. Under Abbott, the state has courted crypto companies, created the nation’s first publicly funded state Bitcoin reserve, and put $10 million in taxpayer money into Bitcoin, a move the Dallas Morning News called “a faddish, high-risk investment” and “mistake.”
The lawsuit
Joyce Rosely, a New Jersey resident, worked at Strive Asset Management from August 2022 until she was fired in March 2023. In a suit filed under New Jersey’s whistleblower protection law, she alleges Ramaswamy and fellow co-founder Anson Frericks pressured employees to violate securities laws almost as soon as she arrived.
According to her complaint, the alleged violations include using sales materials that improperly promised future returns, having employees sell before their securities licenses had transferred to Strive and soliciting business for products that weren’t yet registered. The complaint also alleges Ramaswamy engaged in unlicensed securities sales activity on Twitter.
On Aug. 25, a federal judge in New Jersey denied the company’s motion to dismiss Rosely’s central retaliation claim. The judge also allowed her claim against Ramaswamy to proceed, rejecting his argument that nothing in the complaint showed he was involved in her firing.
Earlier in August, a process server tried to serve Ramaswamy with legal papers at his home. Courier Texas obtained audio of the attempt. (Listen here.) Ramaswamy did not respond to requests for comment about what the papers concerned. It’s unclear whether they were connected to the lawsuit.
Ramaswamy stepped away from Strive in early 2023 to run for president, and the company named a new CEO, Matt Cole, that spring. But Ramaswamy never cut ties.
He’s now running for governor of Ohio, and has cited Strive’s move as one of the “eye opening experiences of why I’m running for governor.” “Turns out the business environment in Texas is way more favorable than the business environment in Ohio,” he said in a July 2025 appearance on the podcast Better Bad Ideas, pointing to “unnecessary regulations, climate regulations” in Ohio.
In the same interview, Ramaswamy downplayed his role in the move. He said he had left Strive’s board to run for president, and that Cole, whom he said he personally recruited, made the decision independently. “I’m not on the board. I’m not. I’m just a shareholder of the company at this point,” Ramaswamy said.
Strive’s own regulatory filings describe a much larger role. A filing dated Oct. 31, 2024, one day before the company announced its move to Dallas, said Strive was “principally owned by Vivek Ramaswamy, the majority shareholder of Strive Enterprises,” as TiffinOhio.net first reported. A 2025 SEC filing tied to Strive’s merger showed that, before the deal, Ramaswamy and a family trust held all of the company’s Class A voting stock.
From anti-ESG to Bitcoin
Strive launched in 2022 as a conservative alternative to firms that weigh environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in investing. After moving to Dallas, it leaned into Texas’ push to become a financial hub. In July 2025, it became the first fund company to list its ETFs on NYSE Texas, the New York Stock Exchange’s new Dallas-based trading venue, putting 13 of its funds there.
In September 2025, Strive merged with Asset Entities, a Nasdaq-listed social media marketing company. The combined company, renamed Strive Inc., raised about $750 million from investors to buy Bitcoin and declared itself the first publicly traded asset management Bitcoin treasury company. The deal and the new shares shrank Ramaswamy’s stake. He still owns about 5.6% of the company, according to its federal filings.
Texas’ crypto bet
In June 2025, Abbott signed a law creating the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, managed by the state comptroller office, now led by Abbott appointee Don Huffines, with $10 million set aside for it.
The comptroller made the first purchase in November 2025, buying about $5 million of shares in BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund, The Bond Buyer reported. A second $5 million purchase in the same fund followed. By early March, after Bitcoin’s price fell, the state’s investment was worth about $7.8 million, The Dallas Morning News reported. In August, its market value fell to about $6.62 million
The reserve is part of what the Morning News described as Abbott’s yearslong push to make Texas a “crypto capital.”
