Altcoins
|3 min ReadDavid Bailey warns failed altcoins blur treasury narrative
Maya Chen
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
The warning
David Bailey says so. The Nakamoto CEO argues that “digital asset treasury company” is a confusing label. The field drifted. Toxic financing crept in. Failed altcoins got rebranded as DATs. Too many failing firms. No plan. No vision. He said it plainly in his X post.
Bailey’s rule of the road is blunt. Build and monetize your balance sheet. Do it well and assets grow. Do it poorly and you trade at a discount until a stronger operator eats you. He calls banks the fiat system’s bitcoin treasury companies. He says we are building “Bitcoin Banks” now. If that term scares you, call them Bitcoin financial institutions. The mission does not change.
The test and the scoreboard
The sector is being tested. Public companies are pushing past Bitcoin. They are moving down the risk curve. One example landed on Aug. 2. Nasdaq-listed Mill City Ventures III was reported to be raising another $500 million under an equity agreement to fund a Sui treasury strategy. Galaxy Digital’s July 31 research notes that firms are expanding their theses beyond BTC to Ether, Solana, XRP, BNB, and HyperLiquid (HYPE). That is where the flows are forming, says Galaxy Research.
Bitcoin still anchors the board. Publicly traded companies hold about $117.91 billion in BTC at publication, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET. Ether is gaining as a yield-bearing alternative. It can be staked for annual returns. Roughly 3.14 percent of all ETH sits with publicly listed treasury companies, StrategicETHReserve reports.
This broader interest may explain why Bitcoin is moving sideways. Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said treasury companies are “taking their shot” in other coins, and that rotation is capping BTC for now. Not everyone will make it. Venture firm Breed warns that only a few Bitcoin treasury companies will survive the death spiral that hits firms trading near net asset value.
The broader shift
Narrative drift is a risk. Bailey wants focus. He wants balance sheets that earn and compound. The market wants clarity too. If you hold alts in a treasury, show the cash flows. If you back BTC, show the yield or the strategy. Labels do not save you. Results do.
Here is the signal beneath the noise. Treasuries are becoming product. Banks by another name. The winners will be the operators who grow assets, price discipline, and communicate in straight lines. Everybody else will get priced by the market and absorbed. That is how cycles clean house. That is how the next leaders emerge.
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.