Markets
|7 min ReadCrypto Treasury Giants Are Losing Their Power To Buy The Dip
Jax Morales
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
1. The DAT Flywheel That Locked Itself
In the April mini bull run, listed crypto treasury companies looked like the perfect bull-market machine. Strategy and its copycats issued cheap equity or convertibles, bought Bitcoin, watched both BTC and their own stock go up, then pulled the same lever again.
That model depends on one fragile ratio: mNAV, roughly the company’s market cap divided by the value of the coins it holds. When mNAV is above 1, equity trades at a premium to the underlying coins. When it slips below 1, the flywheel seizes.
Strategy is the cleanest example. Early on it financed Bitcoin hoarding with low coupon convertible notes, raising more than 8.2 billion dollars by February 2025. From 2024 onward it layered on a huge At-The-Market equity program, authorizing over 42 billion dollars in potential stock issuance and still leaving about 30.2 billion dollars in unused ATM capacity.
On paper that looks like endless dry powder. In practice it is just permission to sell more shares. To turn that capacity into Bitcoin, Strategy needs a stock price that trades above the value of the BTC per share.
At 200 dollars a share backed by 100 dollars of BTC, issuing stock at market is a no brainer. You collect 200 dollars in cash, buy 200 dollars of Bitcoin and increase BTC per share even after dilution. That is the “infinite bullets” loop.
Once mNAV drops below 1, everything flips. Issuing stock at a discount to the BTC value is effectively selling coins cheap through the equity line. Since November, Strategy’s mNAV has spent most of its time under 1. The result is simple. The giant ATM pipe that once financed aggressive dip buying is now politically and economically unusable.
Worse, Strategy has already been forced to tap equity at a discount for a different purpose. It raised about 1.44 billion dollars to build a reserve pool for preferred dividends and interest on its existing debt. Instead of leveraging up to buy BTC, it is using shareholder capital to make sure the old leverage does not blow up the balance sheet.
The template everyone copied is now showing its limits.
2. “Infinite Ammo” Was Mostly Locked Magazines
Zooming out, there are now hundreds of listed or semi-listed crypto treasuries. On the surface they control tens of billions in “ammo” across cash, ATM programs and debt capacity. In this selloff, very little of that has shown up as fresh buying.
Part of the reason is structural. Some players, like Cantor Equity Partners, are primarily legacy asset holders. Their crypto stacks came from M&A, not aggressive financing, and they have little appetite or mandate to issue more debt or equity just to add coins. CEP, now a top three BTC holder with an mNAV of around 1.28, has not added since mid-year.
The more aggressive Strategy-style DATs are the ones everyone expected to lean in. Instead, their share prices have fallen far enough that mNAV is below 1 across much of the group. Their ATM programs are still legally in place but functionally frozen. Until the market lifts their equity back to a premium, the “ammo” is trapped.
Only a handful of names are still buying with real size. BitMine, the largest Ethereum-focused DAT, has kept purchasing despite its own mNAV trading under 1, leaning on 882 million dollars of unencumbered cash and adding nearly 100,000 ETH in a single week. Its ATM line is enormous at 24.5 billion dollars of authorized issuance with roughly 20 billion dollars still unused, but just like Strategy, that capacity mostly sits idle until the premium returns.
Others are probing the edges. CleanSpark has filed to issue 1.15 billion dollars in convertibles for BTC purchases. Metaplanet in Japan has raised over 400 million dollars since November through BTC-backed loans and fresh equity offerings to buy more coins. These are meaningful flows, but tiny compared to the hundreds of billions investors assumed treasuries could unleash on any big dip.
On paper, the sector’s combined cash and ATM authorizations dwarf the last cycle. In practice, the usable firepower is shrinking and highly selective.
3. From Levered HODL To Yield-First Survival
With the pure leverage game broken, most treasuries are quietly changing strategy. The model is shifting from “borrow and buy coins forever” to “make the balance sheet self-funding.”
That means yield.
Instead of treating BTC treasuries as passive vaults, management teams are looking for assets that can generate reliable on-chain cash flow to cover interest and operating costs. Bitcoin, with no native yield, suddenly looks less attractive as the sole reserve asset.
BitMine again shows where the puck is going. It plans to launch MAVAN, a US-based ETH validator network, in Q1 2026, targeting roughly 340 million dollars in annual staking revenue. Other firms, like Upexi and Sol Strategies on Solana, are building treasuries that can earn around 8 percent in native staking yield.
As long as mNAV sits below 1, the board priority is simple. Protect cash, service debt, and let any new capital go into yield-bearing assets that help stabilize the income statement. Bitcoin-only DATs slow their buying. Multi-asset treasuries with ETH, SOL and other staking coins look more resilient.
This is not a bullish or bearish call on BTC itself. It is a recognition that the old “infinite bullets” meme was always conditional on a premium equity valuation and cheap funding. Once that premium disappears, these companies start acting less like hero dip buyers and more like cautious yield funds trying to survive a credit cycle.
4. What This Means For The Next Big Drawdown
For traders in Brazil, the Gulf and everywhere else, the takeaway is uncomfortable.
Crypto treasury companies were never true contrarians. They were pro-cycle amplifiers that bought hardest when prices were high, funding themselves with rich equity and cheap debt. In a dual selloff where coins and their own stocks dump together, the famous “DAT wall” of support does not step in. It disappears behind locked ATM lines and boardroom debates about solvency.
Bottoms in this environment are less likely to be “MSTR just bought the dip, send it” moments and more likely to be driven by spot ETF flows, organic wallets and macro risk appetite. If and when the market recovers enough to push mNAV back above 1 across the sector, the flywheel can spin again and DATs will go back to amplifying the uptrend.
Until then, they are fighting as trapped animals inside their own capital structures. The ammo is there on paper. The trigger is jammed. And the brutal irony is that for the treasury trade to become powerful again, prices probably need to rally first.
Not investment advice. Do your own research.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.