What is a crypto treasury company?

A crypto treasury company is a publicly traded business that holds large amounts of cryptocurrency on its balance sheet as a central part of its strategy, rather than as a side investment. Many raise money from investors specifically to buy more crypto. The model is often called a digital asset treasury, or DAT.

For a stock investor, buying shares in such a company is an indirect way to gain exposure to the crypto it holds, with extra layers of corporate risk on top. It differs from a bitcoin ETF, which simply holds the coins for its shareholders.

How did Strategy become a bitcoin treasury company?

The best-known example is Strategy, the software firm formerly called MicroStrategy. It began buying bitcoin in 2020 with an initial investment of $250 million, a move led by co-founder Michael Saylor, according to Decrypt. Early purchases were funded largely with convertible notes, a type of debt that can later be swapped for shares.

The company changed its name to Strategy in February 2025, Bloomberg reported. Its shares still trade under the ticker MSTR. By late August 2026 it held more than 840,000 bitcoin, according to a filing reported by The Block. It now also sells common shares and several classes of preferred stock, and keeps a dollar reserve to pay dividends and interest.

Other firms copied the approach with different coins. BitMine Immersion, a listed crypto miner, began building an ether treasury in mid-2025 and became the largest public company holder of ether within weeks, The Block reported.

What does mNAV mean?

mNAV is short for market-to-net-asset-value. It compares a company's enterprise value, meaning the market value of its shares plus debt and preferred stock minus cash, with the market value of its crypto holdings.

• mNAV above 1: investors value the company at more than its crypto is worth. The firm can sell new shares and use the proceeds to buy more coins per share than before.
• mNAV of 1: the company is valued at roughly the worth of its holdings.
• mNAV below 1: the company trades at a discount, which can reflect worries about debt or management. Selling new shares at that level shrinks each existing shareholder's slice of the crypto.

What are the risks of a digital asset treasury?

The model depends on the premium lasting. In September 2025, Standard Chartered said that many treasury firms had slipped below an mNAV of 1, making further buying impractical, and expected the sector to consolidate, Cointelegraph reported.

Other risks include debt and dividend payments that must be met even when prices fall, dilution from repeated share sales, and the chance that a company may have to sell crypto in a downturn. Shares can swing harder than the coins themselves. The Block reported in August 2026 that Strategy's stock was about 74% below its 2025 peak, as treasury company valuations shrank across the sector. The guide to why crypto is so volatile explains the price swings underneath.

Is there a crypto treasury company list?

Several free trackers list public companies with crypto treasuries, along with their holdings and mNAV. Examples include BitcoinTreasuries.NET and the digital asset treasury section of DefiLlama. Their figures move with prices and should be read with the date they were last updated.

Crypto prices are volatile and a token can lose most of its value.