The crypto-fund strategy is starting to lose its edge as the premium shares slowly disappear: DWF

What is DAT and why are people willing to pay more than the actual coin value?

A digital asset Treasury (DAT) is a registered company that holds cryptocurrencies on its balance sheet. Investors buy shares in these companies instead of holding their own crypto. The approach originated from Michael Saylor's Strategy, which has been used to purchase Bitcoin since 2001.2020

A key selling point is "premium", where the stock price exceeds the actual value of the crypto held (measured by an mNAV greater than 1) when it's more expensive than the asset in hand. The company can issue additional shares to fund further purchases, with original holders not being revalued as if they had a free multiplier.

What's the situation now?

A new report from DWF Ventures released on Thursday indicates that of the top 20 DATs by asset value, only four have a share price higher than their mNAV: Bit Digital, Strive, Hyperliquid Strategies and BitMine.

Almost all of the rest are buying and selling at "discounted" prices, i.e., markets pricing companies below their actual coin value, meaning that investors no longer want to pay a premium for access to crypto through traditional stocks.

The report also found that since Strategy pioneered this model, most DAT stocks have performed worse than the crypto holdings themselves.

In the same news, Sequans Communications, a French semiconductor company that launched its Bitcoin treasury strategy last year, disclosed it had sold out of the remaining stake,[32] closing in on the withdrawal that began last May.

Why is this model vulnerable?

Galaxy Digital has previously warned of this, noting that the DAT model "depends heavily on a premium to NAV stability", and Will Owens, an analyst at Galaxy wrote: "If Premium breaks down or worse becomes redundant, it will begin to break".

The simple reason is that when a stock becomes cheaper than the crypto it holds, issuing more shares to buy coins turns into destroying original shareholder value, and the model's primary fundraising mechanism stops working.

Standard Chartered had warned of the "mNAV collapse" since September,2025 when Bitcoin and the market were in limbo, warning that it could lead to a consolidation of disparate activities among DAT companies.

DAT premiums typically peak when strategies are new and attract attention, as Strategy once had a year-end high mNAV.2024 When Bitcoin was priced higher and demand for exposure to risk.BTC The model has very high leverage.

Why is this important to Thai investors?

The obvious pressure factor was the price of Bitcoin , which fell from a peak above 126,000 USD in October last year, to below 60,000 USD before recovering sharply 86,000 USD.

For Thais who are familiar with buying crypto through Bitkub or exchanges in Thailand under the auspices of the SEC (Thailand) , the lesson from the DAT model is that holding cryptocurrency via company stock isn't guaranteed to yield a return on coin price, and when stocks sell for less than their real asset value, holders can suffer double losses from both lower coin prices and deeper discounts. Although this model hasn't been widespread in Thai markets yet, the demise trend of premium DATs around the world reflects an excitement about low-risk cryptocurrencies products and investments starting at more fundamental values.