Bitcoin Treasury Companies Face Valuation Strain: 40% Now Underwater in 2026 Market

Bitcoin's corporate backers are feeling the squeeze—and the numbers don't lie.

Nearly half of all public companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets are now underwater on those investments. That's right, 40% are sitting on paper losses as of early 2026. It's the kind of statistic that makes traditional CFOs break out in cold sweats.

The Balance Sheet Blues

These aren't just speculative trades gone wrong. We're talking about strategic treasury allocations—corporate bets on digital gold that have turned into lead weights during this extended crypto winter. The strain shows in quarterly reports, investor calls, and those carefully worded 'long-term vision' statements.

Accounting Games Meet Crypto Reality

Remember when holding Bitcoin was a brilliant hedge? Now it's testing impairment accounting rules and shareholder patience. The volatility everyone celebrated on the way up feels very different on the way down. It's almost enough to make you nostalgic for boring old treasury bonds—almost.

Here's the cynical finance jab: Wall Street loves volatility when it commissions trades but hates it when actual assets move. Go figure.

Who Blinks First?

The real question isn't whether these companies believed in Bitcoin. It's whether their balance sheets can withstand the pressure. Do they double down, averaging into weakness like true believers? Or do they quietly trim positions when no one's looking?

One thing's certain: corporate crypto adoption just got its first real stress test. And 40% of players are already failing it.

Is the Bitcoin DAT model a failure? mNAVs fall steeply 

When Michael Saylor’s software firm Strategy (previously MicroStrategy) began buying Bitcoin through convertible notes and equity, Bitcoin’s price was slightly above $11,000. Fast forward to 5 years later, an all-time-high value of $126,000 in October must have been a reason for MSTR shareholders to smile, but that wasn’t entirely the case.

The model began to falter as equity valuations slipped and BTC prices tanked by over 30% in just three months, not to mention several firms like Strategy had bought the highs. Once stock prices fell below NAV, the business model of issuing new shares to buy Bitcoin became uneconomical, exposing firms to market pressure and investor criticism.

A December report from BitcoinTreasuries.net showed that only one BTC treasury company, France-based The Blockchain Group, outperformed the S&P 500 in 2025, since the benchmark US stocks index returned 16% over the year.

Every other treasury company was well behind the index, and about 60% of them spent more acquiring BTC than those holdings are currently worth. Pioneers Strategy traded at more than double the value of its Bitcoin last year, but its shares are now at a 17% discount to NAV.

Smaller players like Sweden’s H100 Group trade at a 32% discount, Vanadi Coffee trades at a 61% discount to its BTC value, alongside five to six firms NEAR parity, including Brazil-based OranjeBTC. Any modest equity selloff could push them below NAV and make them ripe for a takeover if Bitcoin’s price drop continues.

Echoes of distress, delisting on MSCI, and DATs dubbed rug pulls

Bitcoin treasuries are being blasted by some naysayers in the crypto community, who believe the companies’ buying spree led to a crypto market pull-down causality. 

“Every single one of these companies is simply a pump N dump rug pull on their common shareholders. And no, preferred equities won’t save your shitty scheme when you don’t have a profitable underlying business, will not save your shitty stock. You should avoid any company that calls itself a ‘DAT’ or ‘Bitcoin treasury company’. Bunch of scammers and idiots tbh,” complained one user on X.

Some companies, seeing the whiplash of red mNAVs, are also stepping back, including Prenetics, a health-sciences firm that began buying Bitcoin in 2025. Cryptopolitan reported that it stopped adding coins on December 4 and will now focus on IM8, a nutritional supplement brand co-founded by former England football captain David Beckham.

“We are making disciplined strategic decisions that reflect our experience as operators and our commitment to maximizing long-term shareholder value,” Danny Yeung, Prenetics’s chief executive officer, said in a press release.

In other related news, index provider MSCI’s decision to exclude companies holding significant BTC reserves from its global benchmarks will be made on January 15. If the NYSE-listed company greenlights its exclusion, estimates from BTC for Corporations show the DATs WOULD be forced to sell between $10 billion and $15 billion over a year.

BTC for Corporations, a group advocating corporate Bitcoin adoption, held discussions with MSCI leadership before 2025 came to a close. “We had a very constructive conversation,” said George Mekhail, the group’s executive director.

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