For much of the past three years, a predictable cycle dominated the market: companies announced their intentions to buy massive volumes of Bitcoin, saw their share prices soar to a premium, and issued new shares to buy more Bitcoin. This feedback loop made Bitcoin accumulation look like an “infinite money glitch”: a guaranteed way for public companies to produce shareholder value out of thin air.
As we move into the first quarter of 2026, that cycle has been broken. Recent data shows that approximately 40% of publicly traded Bitcoin Treasuries are now trading at a discount to their net asset value (NAV). In simple terms, the market now values these companies as liabilities, worth less than the market price of the Bitcoin they hold.
This collapse in valuation has drawn harsh criticism from institutional veterans. VanEck CEO Jan van Eck recently dismissed the sector as an advertising-driven trend, while veteran analyst Herb Greenberg has characterized the most prominent player, Strategy, as a “quasi-Ponzi scheme.”
These criticisms point to a failure in the way many of these companies are managed. To remain viable, Bitcoin treasury companies must accept that cumulative dilution is no longer a sustainable strategy. They must move beyond passive holding and operate as disciplined asset managers.
Competing Philosophies: The Developer Versus the Asset Manager
Today, most Bitcoin treasury companies are divided into two camps, representing fundamentally different corporate management philosophies: “Promoters” and “Asset Managers.”
Promoters treat Bitcoin as a passive asset to be treasured. In this model, the main work of the company is twofold. First, the company must act as an aggressive defender of the underlying coin and its ecosystem. By investing in community projects and maintaining a constant presence in public discourse, the Promoter works to increase the price of the token and capitalize on the profits from their existing holdings. Secondly, the Promoter must market its own shares to maintain a high premium. When the market values the company significantly more than the Bitcoin it actually owns, the company can sell new shares at that inflated price to buy more Bitcoin at the normal market price. This calculated financial maneuver is called cumulative dilution.
Together, these strategies create a vicious feedback loop. The Promoter needs the price of Bitcoin to rise to increase its net asset value and needs the capital premium to be maintained to continue its accumulation strategy. However, this model is fragile because it depends entirely on external sentiment. If the BTC price stagnates or the equity premium disappears, as we will see across the board in 2026, the Promoter will be left with an unproductive balance sheet and no internal mechanism for growth.
In contrast, asset managers see Bitcoin as a productive product similar to “digital oil.” In the physical world, a large oil company like Exxon or Shell does not simply sit on reserves and wait for a rebound in prices. They are sophisticated financial operators who treat their inventory as a productive asset. They trade the futures curve to capture premiums and monetize market volatility.
Asset Manager-style treasuries apply this same industrial rigor to the digital realm. By using their balance sheet to generate real returns denominated in Bitcoin, they ensure that growth is driven by operational skill, rather than being a byproduct of crypto market sentiment. By treating Bitcoin as a commodity to be managed, the asset manager generates real returns from specialized management of the asset, not from continually issuing new shares to the public.
The era of accretive dilution is over
The distinction between these two models is no longer academic. One of them has stopped working.
The Promoter approach (relying on the issuance of shares to finance Bitcoin accumulation) is no longer a viable growth strategy. What once passed as financial sophistication was, in practice, a tactic that depended on unusually favorable market conditions.
Issuing shares at a premium may temporarily increase Bitcoin per share, but it does not generate an economic return. It generates no cash flow, no operating advantage, or lasting capitalization mechanism. It exists entirely at the discretion of new investors. When that demand weakens, the strategy collapses.
For much of 2025, this reality was easy to ignore. Rising Bitcoin prices and abundant liquidity made accumulation strategies seem interchangeable. Capital flowed freely, equity premiums expanded, and dozens of treasury companies adopted the same playbook: buy Bitcoin, push the narrative, raise more capital, repeat. In that environment, differentiation did not matter.
He does it now.
As the market matures, Bitcoin hoards that rely solely on passive accumulation face a harsh limitation: they lack an internal mechanism for growth. When all companies own the same asset, maintain it in the same manner, and depend on the same stock market dynamics, there is no basis for sustained outperformance. The model has become commoditized and investors are growing tired of it.
Only top performers – those with exceptional scale, brand recognition and Michael Saylor-level fame – will be able to sustain this approach. For most treasury companies, passive accrual without active management offers no path to differentiation, resilience or long-term relevance.
The markets are already reflecting this reality. Nearly half of Bitcoin treasury companies have fallen below mNAV and most will not recover without a drastic turnaround.
Transition from passive storage to active management
To go from promoter to asset manager, companies must go beyond the simple HODL strategy and put the balance sheet to work. This means adopting the tools of professional commodities trading.
One primary tool is basis trading, in which a company exploits the price difference between the Bitcoin spot price and the futures contract price. By capturing this spread, a company can increase its Bitcoin holdings even when the price of the asset is stable or falling. Additionally, a Bitcoin asset manager uses dynamic options strategies to convert market turbulence into income.
This approach provides a “real return” that is not dependent on selling more shares or finding new investors. Transform treasury from a cost center to a profit center. Most importantly, it provides a clear path to increasing Bitcoin per share through operational excellence rather than capital market maneuvers.
Treasury firms also need to adjust the way they communicate with investors. Too many treasury CEOs present themselves as low-budget imitators of Michael Saylor, focusing on narrative amplification, public advocacy and symbolic accumulation. It’s an approach designed to generate publicity, not to project careful financial management.
As investor scrutiny intensifies, CEOs will need to project credibility by explaining how risk is managed, how exposure is structured and how returns are generated under a variety of market conditions. The market will not reward the loudest Bitcoin advocates; will reward companies that deploy their holdings more productively.
