The big corporate bitcoin land grab of the summer has cooled substantially, and the latest batch of digital asset treasury (DAT) stocks is showing the hangover.
Many once-popular bitcoin treasury stocks now trade below the value of the cryptocurrency stash they hold, forcing companies to go beyond a simple “buy and hold” approach and instead think harder about whether the BTC on their balance sheet is supposed to do more than just sit there.
“We are moving from accumulation to management,” said Thomas Chen, founder of Function, a company that aims to turn bitcoin into a productive asset. “The question is not who buys bitcoin today, but who can manage it as a Treasury-grade asset,” he said.
BTC Treasury Strategies Beyond HODL
Spencer Yang, managing partner at advisory firm BlockSpaceForce, sees a similar shift in sentiment among his clients. With the hype phase largely behind us, companies that rushed to adopt BTC earlier this year are now looking for ways to make the allocation look more like a financial policy than a marketing campaign.
“We haven’t seen corporate treasuries actively put their bitcoins to work yet, but that’s something they should consider if they want to differentiate themselves,” Yang told CoinDesk.
Chen outlined a possible BTC treasury deployment strategy with three key pillars: a portion of holdings earning a conservative return, another portion hedged against drawdowns of 20-30%, and firm limits on size and exposure, diversifying risks.
- Conservative performance: Only use low-risk channels with clear remortgage and collateral segregation rules. Think simple basis capture or overcollateralized loans at conservative loan-to-value thresholds, set by policy, not mood. Avoid chasing double-digit APYs that rely on opaque leverage.
- Downward coverage– Pre-authorize the use of derivatives (such as puts or collars) with position limits, term restrictions, and approval workflows. The goal is to smooth out volatility and protect operational clues, not to speculate on short-term direction.
- Counterparty diversification: Split exposure between custodians and liquidity providers; execute ongoing credit and operational due diligence; and limit limits per counterparty to avoid single point failures.
For implementation, size matters, Spencer said.
Larger treasuries can negotiate better terms and justify dedicated risk teams, he said. Meanwhile, smaller companies may need to keep most of their BTC idle, deploying only a small portion under strict policy limits, he added.
Selling BTC to defend NAV could be “smart”
As DAT shares fall below their underlying net asset value and NAV discounts widen, one strategy is also back on the table: selling a portion of BTC to buy back outstanding shares.
Yang said this could often be a “smart strategy” for vehicles that are trading at a deep discount, a way to show shareholders that management isn’t sitting around collecting fees on gross assets.
“When a DAT is willing to sell underlying assets to defend its market net asset value, it demonstrates conviction,” Yang said. “Confidence is contagious. Once investors trust that leadership will defend the stock, the discount often closes as buyers step in.”
Still, some managers may resist because reducing assets means reducing fees, a stance that could erode confidence and cause investors to look for more disciplined alternatives, Yang argued.
The HODL speech is not dead yet, but it is no longer enough.
In a market where many DATs trade below the value of their own bitcoin, the companies that figure out how to make BTC a productive reserve without turning it into a leveraged experiment may be the ones that persist.
