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Author: Jack Inabinet, Senior Analyst at Bankless; Translation: @bitchainvisionxz
Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) has become one of the explosive phenomena of this crypto cycle.
These listed companies have made crypto asset accumulation a core strategy and have invested billions of dollars in their chosen digital assets – from Bitcoin and Ethereum to Hyperliquid tokens and even TEDA gold tokens!According to CoinGecko’s “2025 Digital Asset Treasury Report”, there are 142 such companies as of October.
While DATs were all the rage earlier this year, with their numbers growing exponentially (with new entrants using more than a dozen cryptocurrencies to chase the replication effect of skyrocketing stock prices), most of these stocks have been marginalized, especially by the overall weakness in the crypto market..
This article will delve into the root causes of the continued underperformance of DATs and the risks that may arise for such listed companies if the market turns.
1,DATGrowth slowing?
It’s no secret that the crypto market will be flat in 2025.
Although the industry was inundated with seemingly positive headlines at the beginning of the year, as I pointed out last week, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization (TOTAL) has still underperformed the stock market benchmark (S&P 500 Index) for the year.
The trading prices of mainstream currencies Bitcoin and Ethereum are basically the same as at the beginning of the year, while many leading altcoins have suffered indiscriminate plummets – popular currencies in the past (including ATOM, ENA, PENGU and WIF) have all fallen by more than 50% during the year.
However,While crypto tokens have continued to sell off throughout the year, the DAT chart has shown a unilateral rise.momentum, both in terms of the total number of companies and the value of their crypto holdings.
For a long period of time in the middle of 2025, for listed companies with sluggish performance, switching to the DAT model seems to be a natural choice: after announcing the transformation, the stock price often rises in response, creating multiple returns for company insiders overnight.In turn, the selected cryptocurrencies gain a new source of price-insensitive demand from DATs that accumulate as many tokens as possible.
While this positive-sum relationship has inspired a large number of companies to adopt DAT strategies in 2025, the frenzy is cooling down.The share prices of new DAT projects now predictably plummet within days of launch, with some even falling below pre-transformation prices…
For example, Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey’s Nakamoto (a Bitcoin treasury company, ticker NAKA) continues to hit all-time lows just six months after becoming a DAT.The stock is now down 81% from its pre-transformation price and about 99% from its all-time high (hit ten days after the DAT announcement).
A more recent case is Forward Industries (a Solana treasury company established in early September and directly supported by the blockchain’s largest institutional investors including Multicoin Capital, Galaxy Digital and Jump Crypto).After falling 75% from its all-time high (hit seven days after the DAT announcement), its stock price is now 33% below its pre-transformation price.
The disillusionment of the DAT dream is evident in various asset data. The scarcity premium that was once exclusive to the blue-chip Strategy (MSTR) seems to be dissipating with the later homogeneous DATs..
2,DATrisk
DAT shares can be compared to a call option on a cryptocurrency: the token price must be above a certain threshold at a certain future date, otherwise the shares will lose value as the reserve asset must be liquidated to pay off the debt.
New DAT projects have so far not been affected by the general downturn in the liquid crypto market.However, continued stagnation in cryptocurrency prices has begun to trouble valuations in an industry that is inherently time-sensitive..
DATs borrow money to amplify potential shareholder returns.This strategy makes sense when the currency outperforms the U.S. dollar, but if the opposite is true, leverage can quickly threaten shareholder returns.
Technically, DAT cannot be “liquidated” because its leverage is created through the issuance of term debt (which does not need to be repaid until maturity).But that doesn’t mean DAT won’t sell crypto reserves.
Peter Thiel-backed ETHZilla sold $40 million of its Ethereum reserves last month to buy back investor shares.Similarly, Swan supportsSequans sold 970 BTC last week to repay debt in advance, becoming the first BTC-type DAT liquidation reserve.
In addition, although many DAT current management teams have stated that they have no intention of selling their crypto reserves, as a public company with shareholders’ rights and interests, DAT may be forced to empty its treasury assets in a hostile takeover.
The crypto-native space is no stranger to similar “risk-free value” treasury raids: acquiring majority stakes in troubled DeFi protocols with the intention of liquidating their treasury assets for a value greater than the protocol itself.
If you have never heard of these hundreds of familiesWith DAT trading at a deep discount to its net asset value (NAV) as existing shareholders are disappointed with earnings, other investors may be taking advantage – this time looking to make a quick profit by liquidating their treasury, a move that could further drag on the price of the underlying token..
