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Author: Cosmo Jiang, General Partner, Pantera Capital, Erik Lowe, Content Director, Pantera Capital; Compilation: Bitchain Vision
Our investment theme for Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATs) is based on a simple premise:
DAT can generate earnings to increase the net asset value per share, thereby generating more underlying token ownership over time rather than just holding spot.
Therefore, having a DAT can provide higher potential for returns than holding directly tokens or holding via ETFs.
Pantera has deployed over $300 million in DATs in various tokens and regions.These DATs are taking advantage of their unique advantages and adopt strategies to increase their holdings of their digital assets in a way that increases their value per share.Here is an overview of our DAT portfolio.
BitMine Immersion (BMNR) is the first investment of Pantera DAT Fund, which embodies a company with a clear strategic roadmap and executive leadership.Fundstrat Chairman Tom Lee elaborated on BitMine’s long-term vision to obtain 5% of the total ETH supply—what they call “5% alchemy.”We believe that taking BMNR as an example, it will be very beneficial to explore the value creation of a DAT with strong execution.
BitMine Case Study
Since BitMine launched its treasury strategy, they have become the world’s largest ETH treasury and the third largest DAT (after Strategy and XXI), holding a total of 1.15 million ETHs worth $4.9 billion (as of August 10, 2025).BMNR is also the 25th-ranked U.S. liquidity stock with daily trading volume of $2.2 billion (the five-day moving average benchmark ended August 8, 2025).
Optimistic about Ethereum
The most important factor in the success of DAT is the long-term investment value of its underlying tokens.BitMine’s DAT is based on the view that Ethereum will become one of the biggest macro trends in the next decade as Wall Street moves to the on-chain.As we wrote in our letter to blockchain investors last month, as tokenization innovation and the growing importance of stablecoins continue to emerge, large on-chain migration is underway (see previous articles from Bitchain Vision:Large migration on the tokenization chain).Currently, there are $25 billion in real-world assets on the public chain – and there are $260 billion in stablecoins, which are currently the 17th largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds.
“Stablecoins have become ChatGPT story in the cryptocurrency space.” – Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, Pantera DAT Call, July 2, 2025
Most of this activity occurs on Ethereum, which has benefited from the growth in block space demand.As financial institutions increasingly rely on Ethereum’s security to support their operations, they will be motivated to participate in their POS networks, further driving the demand for ETH’s overselling.
ETH per share growth
After determining the investment value of the base token, DAT’s business model is to maximize its token holdings per share.There are several main ways to increase the holdings of tokens per share:
1. Issuing shares at a price higher than the net asset value per share (“NAV”).
2. Issuing convertible bonds and other stock-linked securities to monetize volatility in stocks and underlying tokens.
3. Generate pledge rewards, DeFi revenue and other operating income to obtain more tokens.It should be noted that this is the additional leverage that ETH and other smart contract tokens DATs have, while the original Bitcoin DATs including Strategy do not have it.
4. Acquire another DAT with a transaction price close to or lower than NAV.
From this point of view, BitMine’s ETH value per share (also known as “earnings per share”) has grown at an alarming rate in the first month, far exceeding the growth rate of other DATs.The ETH value accumulated in BitMine’s first month even exceeded the value accumulated by Strategy (formerly Microstrategy) in the first six months of executing the strategy.
BitMine mainly increases earnings per share by issuing stocks and generating pledge rewards, and we believe BitMine may soon expand its scope of issuing convertible bonds and other instruments.
Source: BitMine Company, July 27, 2025
Value creation action
The DAT price can be broken down into three items: (a) token per share, (b) the base token price, and (c) the net asset value multiple (“mNAV”).
At the end of June, BMNR was trading at $4.27 per share, about 1.1 times the value of its net assets at the time of its first DAT financing.Just over a month later, the stock closed at $51, about 1.7 times its estimated net asset value estimate of $30 per share.This means that the stock price has risen 1100% in just over a month, including: (a) EPS increased by about 330%, contributing about 60% of the gains; (b) ETH price rose from $2500 to $4300, contributing about 20% of the gains; and (c) Net asset value expanded to 1.7 times, contributing about 20% of the gains.
This means that the vast majority of the rise in BMNR’s share price is driven by ETH per share growth, the core engine of management control that distinguishes DAT from just owning spot ETH.
The third factor we have not discussed above is mNAV.Naturally, one might ask: Why would anyone buy DAT at a price higher than NAV?I find it helpful to compare it here with balance sheet-based financial businesses, including banks.Banks seek benefits from assets, and investors give banks that they believe can continue to generate higher than their cost of capital gains.The best banks trade at a higher price than their net asset value (or book value), for example, JPMorgan Chase is valued at 2 times its net asset value.Similarly, if investors believe that DAT can continue to achieve NAV growth, they may also choose to value at a valuation above NAV.We believe that BMNR’s NAV growth of about 640% month-on-month is enough to justify the mNAV premium.
BitMine’s ability to continue to execute its strategy will emerge over time and inevitably face challenges in the process.BitMine’s management team and its track record to date have attracted support from traditional financial institutions giants including Stan Druckenmiller, Bill Miller and ARK Invest.We expect BitMine’s growth story as the best DAT will be like Strategy, like it is popular among more institutional investors.
