In every cycle of crypto assets, there are always certain engines that ignite the flames of the market. This year, a new capital narrative—Digital Asset Treasury (DAT)—has become the new engine for the crypto market over the past three months, injecting substantial buying power into mainstream alts and providing a fresh definition of the Crypto era for corporate balance sheets.
1. The First Half of the Bull Market: The Four Major Driving Engines of Bitcoin
The crypto market has experienced all cycles by first raising the banner of Bitcoin. The rise of Bitcoin in this cycle is driven by the successive momentum of four engines:
The Belief of Long-Term Holders (LTH): Long Term Holders ( are like the stabilizing force in the Bitcoin market, as they can spontaneously form a strong consensus around the shutdown price of Bitcoin. On-chain data shows that after experiencing the last cycle’s winter, the BTC holdings of long-term holders surpassed 14.52 million in Q4 2023, reaching an all-time high. Their “diamond hands” characteristic builds a solid foundation for the market and serves as the fundamental base for reducing circulation.
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Data source: Glassnode
The influx of funds into Bitcoin ETFs: Starting from 2024, traditional giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity have launched Bitcoin spot ETFs, net purchases exceeding $15 billion within three months of their listing. As of now, a total of over 596,300 BTC (market value over $15 billion) has been net purchased, completely reshaping the funding structure of the crypto market.
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The DAT strategy of listed companies: MicroStrategy’s strategic transformation has initiated the Bitcoin Treasury strategy, creating a capital alchemy model driven by a three-pronged approach of stocks, bonds, and coins—raising funds through zero-interest convertible bonds and stock issuance to purchase BTC, which then feeds back into valuation, boosting stock prices for refinancing. The underlying logic of this strategy is: when its market value has a premium compared to the value of on-hand crypto assets, it uses financial instruments such as private placements, convertible bonds, and preferred stocks to raise funds from the market and purchase more crypto assets, thereby achieving the effect of listed companies accumulating more assets at a lower cost. Through this treasury strategy, MicroStrategy has cumulatively purchased over 628,000 BTC, which has led more than 134 listed companies to include BTC in their treasuries, accumulating over 949,000 BTC.
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National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve: In early 2025, after Trump returns to the White House, an executive order will be issued announcing the establishment of a national-level Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, promoting the Treasury Department and state governments to explore strategic reserve models for BTC, endowing Bitcoin with a new geopolitical dimension of reserve value and injecting unprecedented national narrative imagination space into Bitcoin.
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At this point, Bitcoin has surged to $120,000 with the help of four driving forces, yet there is still no engine in sight that could propel Bitcoin to leap again in the short term. However, MicroStrategy’s treasury strategy has inspired many institutions, leading them to apply the DAT strategy to mainstream alts, thus finding a new engine for some mainstream alts.
2. The Second Half of the Bull Market: DAT Strategy Becomes the New Engine for Mainstream Alts
) ETH due to the rise of the DAT paradigm: “The dual heroes of finance and treasury” quietly emerge.
Although the Ethereum ETF was approved in 2024, it did not trigger the expected rise in the ETH/BTC exchange rate and instead continued to weaken. It wasn’t until April 2025, when the DAT strategy was replicated on ETH, that the ETH market was truly ignited. The leaders in this were two “treasury companies” whose ETH holdings have surpassed those of the Ethereum Foundation: BitMine ###BMNR( and Sharplink Gaming )SBET(.
) Sharplink Gaming (SBET)
On May 27, 2025, SharpLink Gaming announced a $425 million financing round to purchase ETH as the company’s primary treasury reserve asset, making SBET the first Ethereum reserve company. Consensys led the investment, with participation from crypto institutions such as Pantera Capital, ParaFi Capital, and Galaxy Digital. Additionally, Joseph Lubin was appointed as the chairman of the board and will assist the company in developing its core business as a strategic advisor.
Joseph Rubin joined the Ethereum development team as early as the end of 2013 when Vitalik released the Ethereum white paper, and is therefore widely regarded as one of the eight co-founders of Ethereum. In 2015, to promote the implementation of applications on the Ethereum blockchain, Joseph Rubin founded Consensys, which has successively incubated dozens of well-known sub-projects, including MetaMask, Linea, and others.
SharpLink Gaming’s ETH treasury strategy has begun, continuously increasing its holdings of ETH, which now amount to 428,200 coins, making it the first institution to surpass the Ethereum Foundation in terms of holdings.
BitMine (BMNR)
On June 30, 2025, BitMine announced a fundraising of $250 million to initiate the ETH treasury strategy, with several crypto institutions including Pantera Capital, Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital, and Kraken participating in the investment. Later, it also received funding from Silicon Valley venture capital giant Peter Thiel and “Cathie Wood’s” Ark Investment.
On the day BitMine launched its ETH treasury strategy, BitMine appointed Tomas Jong Lee as chairman, who is the former chief equity strategist at JPMorgan and has been focused on the crypto assets field since 2017, often publicly predicting market trends, and is considered a “die-hard bull”… Clearly, he is well-suited to lead the execution of this strategy. After Tomas Jong Lee became chairman of BitMine, he frequently appeared in mainstream media, interpreting investment opportunities in Ethereum.
In just one month, BitMine’s ETH holdings rapidly expanded to 625,000 ETH, surpassing Sharplink Gaming and the Ethereum Foundation to become the company with the most ETH holdings.
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Data source: Strategicethreserve
The ETH treasury “duo” has not only brought in clear capital inflows but also attracted more companies such as The Ether Machine, Bit Digital, BTCS Inc., GameSquare Holdings, and Intchains Group to launch ETH treasury strategies. At the same time, it has reversed the downturn in ETH prices and even shaken the monopoly position of the Ethereum Foundation in terms of community faith, pricing power, and discourse power. It is no exaggeration to say that Tomas Jong Lee and Joseph Rubin are the real decision-makers behind the current ETH price trend.
) projects such as SOL, BNB, ENA, and HYPE are following up.
The DAT strategy of Ethereum has reversed the downward trend of ETH prices, leading more institutions to start laying out DAT strategies. The treasury strategies of projects such as SOL, BNB, ENA, and HYPE have emerged one after another, making the DAT strategy a rising engine for mainstream alts.
As of now, 8 companies have launched the Strategic SOL Reserve, with a total reserve of over 3 million SOL, among which Upexi and DeFi Development have the largest reserves.
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DeFi Development Corps (DFDV): In April 2025, Pantera Capital invested in DeFi Development Corps, which is the first publicly listed company in the U.S. stock market to use SOL as a reserve asset. Most members of DFDV come from senior management at Kraken, and the CFO has operated Solana validation nodes, giving the team a deep understanding of Solana. As of now, DFDV’s SOL reserves have reached 999,900 coins, and its stock price has seen over a 20-fold increase in the past six months.
Upexi: Between April and July 2025, Upexi increased its SOL holdings from 73,500 coins to 1.8 million coins. Almost all of Upexi’s SOL holdings are used for staking, and based on an 8% annual yield, Upexi expects to generate approximately $26 million in staking rewards annually through its SOL treasury strategy. Upexi mainly increases its SOL reserves through token lock-up discounts, staking strategies, and issuing equity plus convertible notes.
SOL Strategies Inc. (HODL): This is also one of the first publicly listed companies to announce a phased acquisition of SOL and launch a strategic reserve plan. In early 2025, they issued $500 million in convertible bonds to establish a SOL treasury and participate in the operation of validation nodes. As of now, SOL Strategies holds approximately 260,000 SOL, most of which are used for institutional validation node staking, with a blended yield ranging from 6% to 8%.
In addition, projects like BNB, ENA, and HYPE have institutions launching corresponding token DAT strategies. For example, BNB has CEA Industries Inc (VAPE) with investment from YZi Labs; Hyperliquid has Sonnet Bio Therapeutics (SONN) funded by Paradigm; Ethena has StablecoinX established under the leadership of the Ethena Foundation.
Three, Analysis of the Two Paradigm Models of DAT
Bitcoin Paradigm: “Digital Gold” Anti-Inflation Anchor + Premium Leverage
MicroStrategy leverages its “triple flywheel” (stock-coin resonance flywheel, stock-bond collaborative flywheel, coin-bond arbitrage flywheel) to navigate its Bitcoin reserve strategy, employing a tiered sales strategy to capture three types of capital (preferred stock locking fixed income investors, convertible bonds attracting arbitrage funds, stocks bearing risk speculation).
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MicroStrategy is currently the only company running a DAT strategy for over one cycle (4 years) and achieving a spiral rise in stock coins.
) Ethereum Paradigm: “Digital Treasury” Yield Anchor
Unlike MicroStrategy, both ETH treasury giants have only recently transitioned to the “ETH treasury strategy,” and both are supported by investment institutions heavily invested in Ethereum.
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Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum uses a PoS mechanism, so ETH has characteristics that can be staked and can generate stable on-chain returns. Therefore, ETH is positioned similarly to “digital treasury bonds,” with an annual yield of about 4%. This is also an advantage for listed companies that hold ETH— they can obtain relatively stable staking returns— which allows listed companies to potentially enjoy asset appreciation from ETH price increases while also gaining stable cash flow from staking.
Solana’s DAT strategy is similar to Ethereum, providing staking rewards with an annual yield of 6%-8%, which is higher than ETH’s staking yield. With the anticipation of the approval and launch of SOL spot ETFs in the second half of the year, SOL’s market performance is also worth looking forward to.
Four, The Strategic Significance and Reflexivity Risks of DAT
The reason DAT has become a new engine for mainstream alts is primarily due to: for listed companies, it has successfully integrated corporate financial strategies with on-chain assets, bringing new assets into publicly listed companies; for crypto assets projects, it not only provides a solid buying power foundation for the crypto market but also attracts more traditional capital and long-term investors’ attention. When MicroStrategy’s financial report begins to mention “per share coin amount,” when BitMine’s ETH staking returns become the focus of quarterly earnings calls, and when SOL Strategies Inc.'s earnings call sees investors focusing on institutional validation node staking yields… the crypto industry will enter a new era.
Be wary of the castle in the air DAT strategies. We have observed that, apart from the micro-strategy’s “three-flywheel” financing path, most mainstream altcoin DAT strategies’ initial funding comes from the project foundation itself, major token investors, or core ecological nodes. For example, the 10 million HYPE of SONN is directly injected by Paradigm holding the HYPE tokens, and StablecoinX’s ENA can be directly injected by PIPE round investors using their held ENA tokens… These are essentially not new real buy orders. The projects listed in the article still have more or less real buy order DAT strategy cases, and some projects not listed in the article have DAT strategies that actually belong to “stepping on the left foot with the right foot.”
We need to be vigilant about the reflexivity of the Minsky moment in the DAT strategy. The DAT strategy heavily relies on the feedback mechanism of the capital market, forming a tight feedback loop between coin prices, stock market value, and refinancing capacity. When this loop operates positively, both coin prices and stock market values grow, and the company’s refinancing capacity is also strong; however, once this loop operates negatively, it may trigger a chain reaction: coin price declines → per share gold content shrinks → stock market value premium contracts → refinancing capacity decreases → forced sell-off → further decline in coin prices → other DAT strategy companies are also forced to sell off → leading to a stampede.
5. Conclusion
The emergence of digital asset reserve strategies may signify that the outcome of this bull market no longer solely depends on who has the most technological innovation or application innovation; financial configurability is also very important. Market funds may cluster around a few coins suitable for inclusion in balance sheets, demonstrating a “the strong get stronger” phenomenon.
