Skip to main content

mastodon - Link to source

Newsletter: Crypto’s latest “infinite money machine” is the digital asset treasury company — a publicly traded firm that exists primarily to accumulate crypto. For a while, these stocks traded at hefty premiums to the underlying assets. But now, the trade is unraveling.

citationneeded.news/digital-as…

#crypto #cryptocurrency #CitationNeededNewsletter


Digital asset treasury companies are running out of steam

Convincing traders to pay $2 for $1 of bitcoin worked — for a while. As premiums evaporate, an unwind could be painful.
Molly White (Citation Needed)
#crypto #cryptocurrency #citationneedednewsletter
in reply to Molly White

Molly White
mastodon - Link to source
Molly White
• •

With two months of sinking crypto prices, DATCOs are faltering. Some have even begun to sell their crypto to try to rescue plunging stock prices.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #CitationNeededNewsletter

Now, with two months of sinking crypto prices, some of these firms are beginning to look pretty shaky, and the warnings from Chanos and others seem prescient. Many DATCOs have flipped from trading at a premium to a discount, meaning shares trade for less than the value of the underlying digital asset. Nakamoto, a bitcoin treasury company that merged with the publicly traded KindlyMD earlier this year, has cratered by 98%. BitMine is down 77% since adopting its DAT strategy this past summer. The OG, MicroStrategy, is down 60%. (Nakamoto and BitMine are trading at a discount to the value of their treasury holdings; MicroStrategy still trades at a premium, though it has been narrowing.)
ETHZilla, which up until August was a pharmaceutical research firm called 180 Life Sciences, sold around $40 million of its ETH treasury to try to bolster its plunging stock price.9 FG Nexus, which also launched an ETH treasury strategy only months ago, has sold nearly $33 million of its holdings for the same purpose.10 Sequans, a semiconductor company that established a bitcoin treasury in June, sold $100 million of its bitcoin to pay down its debt.11
#crypto #cryptocurrency #citationneedednewsletter
in reply to Molly White

Molly White
mastodon - Link to source
Molly White
• •

This is a scary trend. If crypto prices don’t rebound, DATCOs could be forced to sell their crypto, dragging the market down even further. Galaxy Digital researchers have compared the model, and its potential unwind, to the 1920s investment trust boom and bust.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #CitationNeededNewsletter

This is a scary trend, particularly for traders holding shares in firms that have relied on debt to accumulate their crypto hoards. If crypto prices fail to rally before that debt comes due, the firms could be forced to sell their crypto. Large forced sales, or forced sales across many DATCOs, can depress prices further, only exacerbating the problem. Researchers with Galaxy Digital have compared the potential “unwind” to the busting of the 1920s investment trust boom, writing:12 The 1920s investment trust boom followed a similar reflexive loop. Trusts traded at premiums to NAV, issued shares, and used the proceeds to buy more assets. When sentiment turned, those same mechanics amplified the downside. Collapsing premiums choked off access to capital while leverage magnified losses on falling assets. These cascading failures were an accelerant of the 1929 crash and subsequent Great Depression.
#crypto #cryptocurrency #citationneedednewsletter
⇧