After rough headwinds since late 2025, digital asset treasuries are now showing signs of relief.
According to Zach Pandl, head of research at asset manager Grayscale, the sector has crawled out of distress through new strategies.
The DATs are finding their footing again. They have pulled this off by optimizing capital structures, generating income, and diversifying business models.
How DATs are handling crypto winter
The market segment leader, Strategy, for example, pivoted from convertible bonds to preferred stocks. And Stretch (STRC) emerged as a key capital driver for its Bitcoin buying spree.
Additionally, it launched a $2.25 billion USD reserve. This would help cover short-term dividend obligations associated with its preferred stock line-up.
Collectively, the new and optimized capital structures helped the firm reduce its overall debt burden. By extension, it also helped Strategy avoid being removed from major benchmark indices such as the MSCI Index.
On the other hand, some players, such as SharpLink Gaming and BitMine Immersion Technologies, the world’s largest Ethereum treasury firm, opted to stake and restake their crypto holdings to generate income.
In fact, BitMine is targeting $300 million in annual revenue if it stakes its entire 4.6 million ETH stash in the following weeks.
At the same time, other treasury firms, such as Bitcoin miner MARA, sold part of their holdings to bet on AI adoption, as a means of diversifying away from the crypto sector to maximize revenue potential.
Treasury firms pivot amid pressure
But not all managed to adjust accordingly without burning through their holdings. For example, the BTC treasury firm backed by David Bailey, Nakamoto, saw its stock drop nearly to zero. Notably, Sequans sold 970 BTC and paid 50% of its convertible debt, slashing the burden from $189M to $94.5M.
Similarly, ETHZilla liquidated part of its ETH holdings, worth $114M, to fund share buybacks, pay down debt, and pivot to tokenization.
It’s worth pointing out that nearly all the treasury firms’ crypto holdings value fell below their enterprise value in the past few months, forcing most of them to buy back shares to boost their stocks.
This was done either by offloading crypto holdings or by taking additional loans. Metaplanet, for example, raised a $500 million loan and pledged its BTC holdings rather than selling them.
Overall, forced sell-offs among DATs were limited. In fact, they have been net accumulators in the past few weeks.
Final Summary
- DATs, led by Strategy, MARA, and BitMine, opted for new capital structures, new income streams, and diversification into other sectors to survive crypto distress.
- Grayscale noted that DATs were net buyers in the past few weeks, underscoring that they were finding their ‘footing again.’
