Author: Bootly
Bitcoin treasury companies are undergoing a brutal screening.
Not long ago, Nasdaq's compliance reminder to KindlyMD (NAKA) regarding its minimum stock price pushed the "Bitcoin Treasury Company" sector into a more brutal and realistic phase: from storytelling and capturing premiums to being forced to answer hard questions like "Where does cash flow come from? Can financing continue? Will coins be sold during extreme market conditions?"
According to Nasdaq rules, the company needs to have its stock price close at $1 or above for at least 10 consecutive trading days by June 8, 2026, to regain compliance.
For "treasury companies" whose lifeblood is their ability to raise capital in the market, such notices often trigger a chain reaction of financing discounts, liquidity contraction, and valuation repricing.
The market's patience seems to be running out.
Imitators Under Collective Pressure: The Market is "Voting with its Feet"
If MicroStrategy (MSTR) is the originator of this model, then the past year has seen the emergence of a whole batch of followers trying to replicate its path. But recent stock performance shows that investors are pricing these "imitators" much more harshly.
Over the past month, KindlyMD (NAKA) stock fell about 39%;
American Bitcoin (ABTC), associated with Eric Trump, fell nearly 68%;
ProCap Financial (BRR), involving Anthony Pompliano, fell nearly 70%.
This deceleration is not an isolated case but a sector-wide phenomenon. Even among Ethereum treasury companies, the situation hasn't improved. Taking Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) as an example, this company, whose core asset is holding ETH, has seen its stock price fall by over 30% since the crypto market's significant correction last October, while Ethereum itself fell about 25% in the same period.
This means that during a downturn, these companies not only fail to provide a "buffer" but often exhibit higher volatility than the underlying assets.
Who Gets a Premium, Who Gets Discounted
If we further dissect the situation of different companies, the differences are particularly clear in two metrics: coin holdings and mNAV (Market Cap / Net Asset Value). The former determines the company's scale in the crypto asset narrative, while the latter reflects whether the market is still willing to pay a premium for its continued financing ability.
Looking at public data from sources like Bitcoin Treasuries, the divergence between companies is already very apparent.
Core Data Comparison of Major Bitcoin Treasury Companies
| Company | Primary Asset | Coin Holdings | Holding Value (Est.) | Current Market Cap | mNAV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MicroStrategy (MSTR) | BTC | 671,268 BTC | ≈$57.7B | ≈$46.0B | ≈0.8x |
| KindlyMD (NAKA) | BTC | 5,398 BTC | ≈$465M | ≈$161M | ≈0.35x |
| American Bitcoin (ABTC) | BTC | 5,098 BTC | ≈$439M | ≈$2.0B | ≈3.5x |
| ProCap Financial (BRR) | BTC | 4,951 BTC | ≈$435M | Below Holding Value | <1x |
Note: Holdings and valuation data are based on public tracking sources like Bitcoin Treasuries; market cap is an estimated range for the period.
The signal from this data is not complicated:
The market is no longer pricing based on "whether Bitcoin is held" itself, but is reassessing the company's capital structure, financing flexibility, and going concern ability.
KindlyMD's mNAV falling below 0.4x means its stock is seen by the market as a "high-risk vehicle below its book asset value"; while American Bitcoin still maintains a high premium, its sharp stock retreat shows that this premium itself is extremely unstable.
Among all companies, the change in MicroStrategy (MSTR) is the most representative. Earlier this year, its mNAV was once above 1.5x, but as Bitcoin entered a high-volatility phase in Q4, this metric quickly converged towards the asset value and recently fell to around 0.8x.
This change is not a simple "valuation correction" but a shift in market focus:
From "how many more coins can be bought" to "whether coins will be forced to be sold during volatile periods."
It is in this context that MicroStrategy announced the establishment of a cash reserve of approximately $1.44 billion to cover dividend and debt interest payments for the next ~21 months, explicitly reducing the possibility of selling Bitcoin in extreme market conditions.
The Underlying Reality: Most Companies Actually Bought at High Prices
If we zoom out, the fragility of the industry as a whole is more directly reflected in the statistics.
According to Bitcoin Treasuries' summary, among the current ~100 Bitcoin treasury companies with calculable cost bases, 65 bought Bitcoin above the current price. In other words, the industry as a whole is suffering large-scale unrealized losses.
More notably, during the recent accelerated market decline phase, at least 5 companies have collectively sold 1,883 Bitcoins. This behavior itself creates a clear tension with the narrative of "long-term holding and weathering cycles."
As Matt Zhang, founder of Hivemind Capital, stated, this phase is more like an "industry shakeout." He revealed in a Yahoo Finance interview that his team evaluated over 100 digital asset treasury companies this year, ultimately investing in only about ten, and bluntly stated that a significant portion of them might gradually become "irrelevant."
In his view, even if more traditional companies incorporate Bitcoin or Ethereum into their balance sheets in the future, this alone will not constitute long-term competitiveness. The real watershed is: whether they have stable operational cash flow and whether they can maintain the treasury structure without relying on continuous financing.
Analysts at Galaxy Digital pointed out that this industry turmoil is actually a "Darwinian screening period." As risk appetite weakens and financing costs rise, companies without business support, relying solely on asset appreciation stories, will be forced to consolidate, sell, or exit the market entirely.
This judgment is highly consistent with the conclusions of some institutional research: the treasury strategy has not been negated, but has evolved from "concept arbitrage" to a comprehensive competition around capital structure, cash management, and risk control.
Conclusion
The Nasdaq notice received by KindlyMD might be just the beginning. It reminds the market, and these companies:
During periods of loose liquidity and one-sided asset appreciation, "buying coins" alone was enough to support valuations; but when the cycle reverses, what the market truly cares about is whether you can survive the turbulence.
This round of adjustment will not make all Bitcoin treasury companies disappear, but it will definitely redefine who gets to stay on stage.
Looking back at the end of the year, this is perhaps the moment when the first batch of "Bitcoin treasury companies" is being grilled by the market, and also the starting point for the next phase of industry differentiation.
