On July 28, a U.S. stock e-cigarette company named VAPE staged a surreal scene in the capital market—its stock price soared from $8.88 to $82.88, with a single-day increase of over 600%. This marginal company, with a market value of less than $10 million and annual revenue of only a few million, ignited the market with a single announcement: it would transform into the world's first "BNB treasury-type listed company" and secured a $1.25 billion PIPE financing led by 10X Capital and the Zhao Changpeng family office YZi Labs.
Even more dramatic was the behind-the-scenes maneuvering: to prevent information leaks, Binance-related teams simultaneously bought multiple small U.S. shell companies, only finalizing VAPE as the target at the last moment. This meticulously designed capital operation unveiled a new path for the penetration of crypto assets into the traditional financial system—the BNB treasury model.
While MicroStrategy firmly held the title of "public company with the most Bitcoin holdings," the emergence of the BNB treasury model brought about more radical innovation. Although both provide investors with exposure to crypto assets through public company vehicles, there is a fundamental difference in their internal logic. MicroStrategy employs a simple and direct hoarding strategy: raising funds through debt and equity issuance to hold 597,000 Bitcoins (worth $65 billion) with a leverage of 5.2 times, relying entirely on the appreciation of BTC prices for capital gains. In contrast, the BNB treasury model constructs a triple revenue engine: appreciation of the underlying holdings: planning to build a large-scale BNB holding to anchor its price fluctuations; on-chain ecological revenue: generating cash flow through staking, lending, and DeFi protocols; compliance premium arbitrage: attracting traditional capital that cannot hold coins directly by utilizing the public company structure.
This design stems from BNB's unique ecological niche. As of July 2025, BNB's market value reached $119.3 billion, surpassing MicroStrategy to rank among the top 200 global assets. The underlying BNB Chain has formed a complete ecosystem: PancakeSwap occupies 59.6% of the entire chain's DEX market share, Lista DAO's TVL has surpassed $2.65 billion, and Four.meme has attracted 1.1 million users—these all provide revenue sources for the treasury model. More critically, there is sovereign-level recognition. The Kingdom of Bhutan has included BNB alongside BTC and ETH in its official strategic reserves, while Zhao Changpeng is lobbying countries like Kyrgyzstan to include BNB in their national crypto reserves. This "national endorsement" is a distinction that Bitcoin has not achieved.
Behind VAPE's stock price surge is the disruption of traditional valuation logic by structured financial instruments. This financing was orchestrated by Wall Street veterans and crypto newcomers: led by David Namdar, co-founder of Galaxy Digital, and former California pension chief investment officer Russell Read, along with Zhao Changpeng's family office, managing about $10 billion in crypto assets. The PIPE financing structure they designed conceals intricacies:
This design brings a dual effect: on one hand, the exercise price of the warrants is far below the market price (for example, VAPE's warrants are priced at only 1/3 of the market price), reserving ample arbitrage space for investors; on the other hand, when the stock price rises and triggers mandatory exercise clauses, it may lead to a large sell-off of new shares, forming a self-restraining mechanism of "the higher it rises, the heavier the selling pressure."
The true chess player behind the scenes is Zhao Changpeng. Although he returned discreetly as an "intern," his family office YZi Labs not only led this transaction but also completed a strategic transformation in early 2025—upgrading from Binance's venture capital department to an independent institution, expanding investment directions to cutting-edge fields like AI and biotechnology. This suggests that the BNB treasury is merely one part of CZ's broader strategy.
The core value of the BNB treasury model lies in breaking down three major barriers between crypto assets and traditional capital markets:
Accounting Barrier
Windtree Therapeutics explicitly stated that adopting the BNB treasury model could help public companies "build an alternative reserve pool to hedge against dollar credit risk," while avoiding the accounting challenges of directly holding coins. The "BNB holdings" on the public company's balance sheet can be measured at fair value, avoiding being classified as securities assets.
Regulatory Barrier
The SEC's key policy shift on July 30 was timely: it approved the use of a "physical redemption" mechanism for cryptocurrency ETPs, replacing the original cash-only model. Although it seems like a technical adjustment, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out, "This marks the SEC's first step toward a more supportive stance on cryptocurrencies." Meanwhile, VanEck submitted a BNB ETF application in May, opening new channels for institutional funds.
Valuation Barrier
As utility tokens (like Aave and Pendle) gain market favor through protocol revenue buyback mechanisms, the BNB treasury provides valuation anchors that are more aligned with traditional capital perceptions through public company financial disclosures and third-party audits, compared to on-chain verification. Nano Labs founder Kong Jianping even predicts that BNB will challenge the $2000 mark in a bull market.
As VAPE's stock price enters a new phase following the completion of PIPE financing, the real test is just beginning. Historical experience shows that such capital operations often present a three-stage path: announcements trigger speculative frenzy (VAPE surged 1800% pre-market); warrant unlocks lead to selling pressure and amplified volatility; value reversion period: fundamentals determine long-term direction.
The key to success or failure depends on two variables: BNB price trends—if BNB breaks through the $1162 range predicted by Turkish economists, the net asset value of the treasury will form support; on-chain revenue realization—whether sustainable cash flow can be generated through staking, DeFi, and other strategies to validate the narrative of "BNB version of MicroStrategy+." A deeper impact lies in the transfer of financial power. When 140 institutions indirectly hold BNB through VAPE, and when sovereign funds include BNB in their reserves, the pricing power of traditional capital markets begins to tilt toward the crypto ecosystem. Zhao Changpeng revealed on social media that "over 30 teams plan to establish BNB treasury companies," suggesting that this may just be the beginning of a mass replication model.
With the SEC approving the physical redemption mechanism for cryptocurrency ETPs, traditional financial channels are quietly shifting. The case of VAPE proves that when MicroStrategy's Bitcoin bet reaches the $65 billion boundary, a new generation of players has found a more ambitious path—embedding token economics into the capital structure of public companies, allowing on-chain revenue to become compliant cash flow in Wall Street reports. In this experiment, the once e-cigarette shell acted like a Trojan horse, carrying $1.25 billion worth of crypto assets into the traditional capital market. Whether it ultimately becomes the "MicroStrategy of BNB," it has already proven that in an era of excess liquidity, capital can always find the sharpest vehicle for new narratives.
Related: Bitwise Executive: Treasury Companies Solve the Narrative Problem of Ether (ETH)
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