How long has it been since you last heard news about Metaplanet?
In the first quarter of 2026, Metaplanet, Japan's and even Asia's largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, adjusted its capital strategy. It chose not to dilute equity when mNAV was less than 1 (meaning the company's market capitalization was lower than the value of its cryptocurrency holdings), turning instead to strategies including Bitcoin-collateralized financing and stock buybacks to maintain its stock price to a certain extent.
While the Q1 financial report showed that Metaplanet still purchased 5,075 Bitcoins, from the start of Q2 until now, aside from announcing the acquisition of the Japanese licensed securities firm Siiibo Securities about a week ago to promote Bitcoin-backed bond-like products and explore security tokenization, there have been no new cryptocurrency purchases.
Even Strategy, which guaranteed countless times that it would never sell Bitcoin, tested the market impact of a small sell-off of Bitcoin to replenish cash. The once "never sell" oath has turned into "ensuring total holdings increase." When the two DAT companies with the largest Bitcoin reserves are feeling the pinch, it's not hard to imagine the current predicament of other companies.
In fact, aside from a few companies like Strategy, Metaplanet, and BitMine who are still persisting, most former DAT companies have already begun seeking alternative paths.
Two Paths to Survival
Under the sudden bear market, many DAT companies directly chose to "stop playing."
ETHZilla is a typical example. Backed by Peter Thiel, this company held over 90,000 ETH at its peak in 2025, but sold a total of $115 million worth of ETH twice by the end of that year to repay debts. This year, it directly abandoned the DAT model, pivoting to businesses like RWA tokenization.
Bitcoin DAT companies like Prenetics Global and Sequans Communications also chose to give up, returning to their core businesses. Many copycat altcoin DAT companies fared even worse, with stock prices nearing zero and the coins in hand difficult to liquidate, so they simply gave up. Data shows that in July 2025 alone, DAT companies bought approximately $20 billion worth of cryptocurrency in total, while the total purchases in Q1 of this year were only about $3.7 billion.
Faced with the stalled flywheel, aside from quitting or giving up, mid-tier treasury companies have embarked on a collective strategic pivot, which can roughly be summarized into three directions. They all point to one core proposition: DAT must transform from passive balance sheet managers into active ecosystem participants to truly possess commercial value.
The first direction is repositioning themselves as institutional-grade crypto asset management platforms and yield funds. SharpLink Gaming is a representative of this path. From day one, this company has staked nearly 100% of its ETH holdings and attributed all staking rewards to shareholders without taking any commission.
This stands in sharp contrast to spot ETH ETFs, which, although granted staking permission by the SEC, can only stake about 50% of holdings to meet daily liquidity requirements. Building on this, SharpLink partnered with the Wall Street veteran crypto investment bank Galaxy Digital in early 2026 to launch the $125 million "Galaxy Sharplink On-Chain Yield Fund," deploying about $100 million worth of staked ETH into DeFi liquidity protocols to seek超额回报 (supernormal returns).
This company is transforming from a simple cryptocurrency holding entity into a management platform providing institutional clients with channels for on-chain yield allocation.
GameSquare, which holds about 15,000 ETH, is exploring even more radical paths. This publicly traded company, which owns gaming assets like FaZe Clan, partnered with crypto asset management firm Dialectic to introduce the latter's self-developed Medici platform. The platform uses machine learning models and automated algorithms to dynamically allocate funds across 72 to 250 different DeFi protocols, aiming for 8% to 14% annualized returns, far above Ethereum's standard staking benchmark of 3% to 4%.
The second direction is transforming into blockchain infrastructure operators, which is particularly evident in the Solana ecosystem. DeFi Development is one that has gone the furthest. This company not only purchased large amounts of SOL but also acquired a validator company and launched its own liquid staking token, dfdvSOL.
dfdvSOL has been integrated into several core Solana DeFi protocols like Kamino, Orca, Drift, and Jupiter Lend, used as lending collateral and liquidity pool assets. DeFi Development earns fee income from every staking operation and protocol integration, building a self-reinforcing network effect cycle.
SOL Strategies, by acquiring three validator companies, constructed a complete business line from digital asset holding to infrastructure operation. It manages over 3.4 million SOL in delegated staking, far exceeding its own treasury size, shifting from serving its own balance sheet to providing staking infrastructure for institutional clients across the entire ecosystem.
Forward Industries is similar. Besides launching the liquid staking token fwdSOL, Forward Industries also partnered with Galaxy Digital and Jump Crypto to launch the propAMM project BisonFi. Since its launch, BisonFi almost immediately became the highest-volume DEX on Solana, squeezing the once-dominant HumidiFi to less than 4% market share.
These two routes also essentially correspond to the capital market's different attitudes towards Ethereum and Solana.
ETH itself is still recognized more as an "asset" than SOL. ETH treasury companies can position themselves as "funds managing ETH," providing institutions with exposure to yield-generating assets. On the other hand, Solana's crypto-native nature is more pronounced. SOL treasury companies need to demonstrate their profitability within this ecosystem, proving their value through logic closer to ordinary listed companies—"looking at financial reports."
Will the Transformation Succeed?
The collective transformation of DAT companies actually reflects a profound cognitive upgrade the entire crypto industry is undergoing. The treasury model pioneered by Strategy was essentially a form of financial engineering that leveraged the convenience of public market financing and investor sentiment for capital arbitrage. When participants expanded from a few pioneers to hundreds of companies, and from Bitcoin to various altcoins, scarcity was diluted, and the premium naturally disappeared.
The launch of cryptocurrency ETFs further accelerated this process. When investors could directly buy ETH ETFs with staking yields at prices close to net asset value through traditional brokerage accounts, the logic of holding DAT stocks at a premium was fundamentally undermined.
The answer given by successful transformation cases is operational capability. Whether it's SharpLink's 100% staking strategy and institutional-grade yield fund, DeFi Development's dfdvSOL ecosystem and validator network, or GameSquare's machine-learning-driven yield platform, they are all attempting to build hard-to-replicate operational moats around crypto assets. This moat may come from technological advantages, network effects, institutional partnerships, or deep participation in the on-chain financial ecosystem.
However, these transformations are not without risks. The 8% to 14% DeFi yields pursued by GameSquare are built on smart contract risk and protocol risk. Any significant DeFi protocol vulnerability or extreme market event could lead to severe losses. DeFi Development's business model heavily relies on the healthy development of the Solana network; once the ecosystem cools, its entire business would be impacted.
For the Web 3.0 market, the impact of this transformation is profound and complex. Those DAT companies that successfully evolved into infrastructure operators and asset management platforms are building bridges between traditional finance and the blockchain ecosystem, promoting the maturation and standardization of institutional-grade services.
But the process of the DAT model moving from frenzy to sobriety also sends an important signal to the market: in the crypto space, not everyone can play the pure capital game. Entities that truly participate in network construction, create actual cash flow, and provide user value possess greater resilience against market cycles.
The DAT movement is entering a phase of冷静重构 (calm reconstruction) from a capital carnival. This might not be bad news. An industry can only truly see who is swimming naked and who is building the ark after the泡沫退去 (bubble subsides). The collective pivot of treasury companies is both a passive response to survival pressure and an inevitable growing pain for an emerging industry moving towards maturity.
