Author: Prathik Desai

Translation and Compilation: BitpushNews

More than a year ago, becoming a digital asset treasury seemed like an easy decision for many companies seeking to boost their stock prices.

Some Microsoft shareholders held meetings, urging the board to evaluate the benefits of incorporating a portion of Bitcoin into its balance sheet. They even mentioned Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the largest publicly traded Bitcoin DAT.

At that time, there was a financial flywheel that attracted everyone to follow.

Buy large amounts of BTC/ETH/SOL. Watch the stock price rise above the value of these assets. Issue more shares at a premium. Use that money to buy more cryptocurrency. Repeat. This financial flywheel supporting publicly traded stocks seemed almost perfect, enough to entice investors. They paid more than two dollars just to gain indirect exposure to Bitcoin worth only one dollar. Those were truly crazy times.

But time tests even the best strategies and flywheels.

Today, as over 45% of the total market capitalization of the crypto market has evaporated in the past four months, the market-to-net-asset-value ratios of most of these packaged companies have fallen below 1. This indicates that the market values these DAT companies lower than the value of their crypto treasuries. This has changed the way the financial flywheel operates.

Because a DAT is not just a packaging of assets. In most cases, it’s a company with operating expenses, financing costs, legal and operational fees. During the mNAV premium era, DATs funded their cryptocurrency purchases and operational costs by selling more shares or raising more debt. In the mNAV discount era, that flywheel collapses.

In today’s analysis, I will show you what the ongoing mNAV discount means for DATs, and whether they can survive in the crypto bear market.

Between 2024 and 2025, more than 30 companies rushed to transform into DATs. They established treasuries around blue-chip coins like Bitcoin, ETH, and SOL, and even meme coins.

At the peak on October 7, 2025, the cryptocurrencies held by DATs were valued at $118 billion, with total market capitalization exceeding $160 billion. Today, the cryptocurrencies held by DATs are valued at $68 billion, while their discounted total market capitalization is just slightly above $50 billion.

Their fates are tied to one thing: their ability to package assets and weave narratives, making the packaged value exceed the asset value. This difference becomes the premium.

The premium itself became the product. If the stock trades at 1.5 times mNAV, the DAT can sell $1 of stock, then purchase $1.5 of crypto asset exposure and describe the transaction as "value-added." Investors are willing to pay a premium because they believe that the DAT can continue selling stock at a premium and use the proceeds to accumulate more cryptocurrency, thereby increasing the corresponding crypto asset value per share over time.

The problem is that the premium will not last forever. Once the market stops paying extra for this packaging, the "sell stock to buy more crypto" flywheel will be hindered.

When stocks no longer trade at 1.5 times their asset value, the amount of cryptocurrency that can be purchased for each new share issued decreases. The premium is no longer a tailwind, but becomes a discount.

Over the past year, leading BTC, ETH, and SOL DATs have seen stock price declines that exceed those of the cryptocurrencies themselves.

Once the premium of the stock relative to the underlying assets disappears, investors naturally ask why they cannot directly buy cryptocurrencies in other places, like decentralized or centralized exchanges, or through exchange-traded funds at a cheaper price?

Matt Levine of Bloomberg raised an important question: If DATs are trading below net asset value, let alone at a premium, why don’t investors force the company to liquidate its crypto treasury or buy back stock?

Many DATs, including the industry leader Strategy, have attempted to convince investors that they will hold cryptocurrencies through the bear market cycle, waiting for the return of the premium era. But I see a more critical issue. If DATs cannot raise additional funds in the foreseeable future, where will they get the funds to maintain operations? These DATs have bills and salaries to pay.

Strategy is an exception for two reasons.

• It reportedly holds $2.25 billion in reserves, enough to cover its dividend and interest obligations for about 2.5 years. This is significant because Strategy no longer solely relies on zero-interest convertible bonds to raise funds. It has also issued preferred instruments that require substantial dividends.

• It also has an operational business, however small, that still generates recurring revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Strategy reported total revenue of $123 million, with a gross profit of $81 million. Although Strategy's net profit may greatly fluctuate due to the mark-to-market changes in cryptocurrency prices each quarter, its business intelligence division is its only tangible source of cash flow.

But this still does not make Strategy's strategy foolproof. The market can still punish its stock—just as it has over the past year—and weaken Strategy's ability to continue raising funds at low costs.

While Strategy may survive the crypto bear market, those emerging DATs that lack sufficient reserves or operational businesses to cover their unavoidable expenses will feel the pressure.

This distinction is even more apparent among ETH DATs.

The largest Ethereum-based DAT—BitMine Immersion—has a marginal operational business supporting its ETH treasury. For the quarter ending November 30, 2025, BMNR reported total revenue of $2.293 million, including consulting, leasing, and staking income.

Its balance sheet shows the company holds digital assets worth $10.56 billion and cash equivalents of $887.7 million. BMNR's operations resulted in a net negative cash flow of $228 million. All of its cash needs are met by issuing new stock.

Last year, fundraising was relatively easy as BMNR’s stock traded at a premium over much of the year. But in the past six months, its mNAV has dropped from 1.5 to about 1.

So what happens when stocks are no longer trading at a premium? Issuing more shares at a discount may lower the corresponding ETH price per share, making it less attractive to investors than buying ETH directly from the market.

This explains why BitMine last month announced it would invest $200 million to acquire a stake in Beast Industries, a private company owned by YouTube blogger Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson. The company stated it will "explore ways to collaborate on DeFi projects".

ETH and SOL DATs might argue that staking income—which BTC DATs cannot boast—can help them survive during market downturns. But this still does not solve the problem of meeting the company’s cash flow obligations.

Even with staking rewards (accumulated in cryptocurrencies like ETH or SOL), as long as these rewards are not converted into fiat, DATs cannot use them to pay salaries, audit fees, listing costs, and interest. A company must either have enough fiat revenue or sell or re-pledge its treasury assets to meet cash needs.

This is particularly evident in the largest SOL-holding DAT—Forward Industries.

FWDI reported a net loss of $586 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, despite having received $17.381 million in staking and related income.

Management stated that its "existing cash balance and operating funds are sufficient to meet our liquidity needs at least until February 2027".

FWDI also disclosed an aggressive capital-raising strategy, including issuing equity at market prices, share buybacks, and a tokenization experiment. However, if mNAV premiums do not exist for the long term, all these attempts may fail to manage its packaged price successfully.

The Path Forward

The core of last year's DAT craze was the speed of asset accumulation and the ability to raise funds by issuing stocks at a premium. As long as packaging could trade at a premium, DATs could continue to convert expensive equity into more per-share crypto assets, calling it "beta". Investors also pretended that the only risk was the asset price itself.

But premiums will not last forever. The cryptocurrency cycle might turn it into a discount. I wrote about this issue shortly after observing the premium decline following the liquidation event on October 10 last year.

However, this bear market will prompt DATs to evaluate whether they should continue to exist once their packaging no longer trades at a premium.

One way to solve this predicament is for companies to improve their operational efficiency, supplementing their DAT strategy with a business that generates positive cash flow or surplus reserves. This is because when the DAT narrative can no longer attract investors during bear markets, a conventional company story will dictate its survival.

If you have read the article "Strategy & Marathon: Faith and Power", you will recall why Strategy has remained resilient across multiple crypto cycles. However, the new batch of companies including BitMine, Forward Industries, SharpLink, and Upexi cannot rely on the same strengths.

Their current attempts at staking income and weak operational businesses may crumble under market pressure unless they consider other options to cover real-world obligations.

We observed this with ETHZilla, a treasury company that sold approximately $115 million of ETH holdings last month and purchased two jet engines. Subsequently, the DAT leased the engines to a major airline and hired Aero Engine Solutions to manage them for a monthly fee.

Looking ahead, people will assess not only digital asset accumulation strategies but also the conditions under which they can survive. In the ongoing DAT cycle, only those companies that can effectively manage dilution, liabilities, fixed obligations, and trading liquidity will endure through market downturns.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。