A small but growing class of companies is moving beyond holding Bitcoin as a static reserve. They are integrating it into the capital strategy, using it to raise funds, secure credit and generate returns. These Digital Asset Treasurys (DATs) are the first laboratories testing how a decentralized asset can operate as productive capital within the architecture of corporate finance.
The phenomenon began with the Strategy but has since expanded. Japan’s Metaplanet, France’s The Blockchain Group, and Europe’s Twenty One Capital are important examples of companies that have developed models that position Bitcoin not just as an investment, but as a functional financial instrument. Their experiments are accelerating a broader process: the financialization of Bitcoin and potentially other tokens as well.
From assets to balance sheet infrastructure
Historically, bitcoin functioned as an alternative store of value, an uncorrelated hedge against monetary debasement. DATs are expanding that equation. By using bitcoin to access liquidity through loans, convertible debt or fund structures, they treat it as programmable collateral and a productive asset. This shift from ownership to use marks bitcoin’s entry into mainstream corporate finance.
The issuance of convertibles has become a common feature of this strategy. Zero-coupon bonds and equity-linked notes allow companies to raise fiat capital while maintaining upside exposure to bitcoin appreciation. Investors gain asymmetric return potential, while issuers optimize their cost of capital. It is a reversal of the traditional view that volatility is purely a risk factor; In this new model, upside volatility becomes part of the value proposition.
Measuring resilience through mNAV
To evaluate these new treasury models, investors have begun to rely on a metric known as market net asset value, or mNAV, a measure of how effectively a company converts digital holdings into real, productive capital.
The key to understanding the sustainability of these strategies lies in the market net asset value, or mNAV, multiple. It unites traditional valuation logic with the dynamics of the crypto market.
The mNAV of a DAT correlates directly with the price of the underlying asset, which explains much of the short-term volatility in these companies’ stock valuations. However, what matters most is not the absolute level of mNAV, but rather the multiple investors who are willing to allocate to it. That multiple reflects confidence in a company’s ability to create “alpha” beyond bitcoin’s baseline performance through disciplined capital allocation, balance sheet engineering, and incremental return generation.
When mNAV multiples compress on average, it indicates that the market is rewarding risk management over speculation. When the multiple declines for a specific company, it highlights idiosyncratic risks. Recent data shows both patterns. DATs that pursued aggressive debt issuances or relied on frequent equity dilution have seen their mNAV multiples fall below 1x, implying investor skepticism about the sustainability of their approach. In contrast, companies that maintain liquidity buffers and diversified treasury structures are preserving their premium, albeit at a somewhat reduced level, demonstrating that the market values prudence and operational discipline even in a high beta environment.
In this sense, mNAV functions as the new price-to-book ratio for digital asset financing, an institutional criterion that distinguishes financial management from opportunism.
A new discipline for a new asset
The integration of Bitcoin into treasury management also imposes new limitations. DAT stock prices now move at almost the same pace as Bitcoin, amplifying volatility. That link is inevitable, but the difference between fragility and resilience lies in structure: how a company manages its debt, equity issuance and liquidity in relation to its exposure to cryptocurrencies.
Well-governed DATs are borrowing lessons from traditional finance, testing leverage ratios, setting coverage limits, implementing forward-looking liquidity and cash flow management schemes, and establishing risk committees to manage their crypto positions with the same rigor that is applied to currencies, commodities, and other traditional assets. This is how Bitcoin goes from a speculative position to a governed component of the financial infrastructure.
Institutional parallels
A similar rebalancing is visible beyond companies. Different crypto foundations now manage treasuries that combine native tokens with traditional assets such as cash, ETFs, and fixed income. Its goal is not to reduce digital exposure but to stabilize it, an approach identical in logic to multi-asset portfolio theory.
In traditional finance, asset managers diversify across currencies, commodities and credit to optimize liquidity and duration. DATs are now replicating this logic on-chain, combining native and fiat assets to achieve the same end. The difference is that bitcoin is no longer peripheral to that process: it is at its core.
From corporations to sovereigns
These dynamics are no longer limited to the private sector. For the US government to announce a strategic reserve of bitcoins, for early US states like New Hampshire or Texas to follow suit, or for the Luxembourg Intergenerational Sovereign Fund to invest 1% of its holdings in bitcoins are modest steps. But they illustrate how the adoption of bitcoin from a store of value rather than a programmable collateral to ultimately becoming a productive asset, as pioneered by businesses, can also extend to public finances.
When state or institutional treasuries begin to hold bitcoins as part of long-term reserves, the asset moves from speculative wealth to usable financial infrastructure. At that point, the conversation is no longer about adoption, but integration: how to manage, lend and collateralize bitcoins within regulated frameworks.
The way forward
Bitcoin will continue to be volatile. That is its nature. But volatility does not exclude utility; it simply demands sophistication. More funds, loans, derivatives markets and structured products are being built around it, each adding depth to a maturing market.
The DATs are where this new system is first pressure tested. Their success will not depend on the number of bitcoins they accumulate, but on how effectively they convert volatility into capital efficiency, using transparency, balanced reserves, and disciplined treasury management to build trust.
In that sense, digital asset Treasuries can be seen as a testing ground for bitcoin’s next step toward institutional adoption. Its evolution will tell us how quickly the world’s first digital asset can become not only a store of value, but also a functional component of modern finance.
