Friday was a rough day for crypto stocks — especially for companies going all-in on bitcoin treasury strategies. MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Semler Scientific (SMLR) both took a hit, dropping around 6%, while bitcoin itself slipped just over 2%. Japan’s Metaplanet felt it even harder, plunging 24%.
But the bigger picture is even more worrying. MSTR shares were trading around $376 by Friday afternoon — that’s over 30% down from their all-time high late last year, despite bitcoin itself reaching new record highs this week.
So what’s going on? The market seems to be second-guessing the sustainability of Michael Saylor’s infamous bitcoin-hoarding model — a strategy now being mimicked by companies like Metaplanet, Twenty One, and Nakamoto.
A popular Bitcoin voice on Twitter, lowstrife, put it bluntly:
> “Bitcoin treasury companies are all the rage this week. I think their toxic leverage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to bitcoin and what it stands for.”
The issue centers around a financial metric called mNAV — market value to net asset value. Simply put, these companies rely on staying above a 1.0 mNAV ratio to keep attracting investor capital. As long as they’re trading at a premium to the actual value of their bitcoin holdings, they can keep raising money and buying more BTC.
But if mNAV slips below 1.0? Game over. That means the market values the company less than the bitcoin it holds. At that point, raising capital becomes extremely difficult — and that could spell trouble, especially for companies juggling convertible notes or preferred stock payouts.
It’s all starting to feel eerily similar to the GBTC story.
Back in 2020–2021, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) traded at a huge premium as institutions rushed in. But when the market turned, that premium flipped to a painful discount. The fallout? It helped trigger the implosion of Three Arrows Capital, which then cascaded into the FTX collapse. Bitcoin fell from $69K to $15K in just a year.
As Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures aptly put it:
> “The whole game now is figuring out how much more $BTC these access vehicles will scoop up, and when they’ll blow up and spit it all back out again.”
Still, not everyone’s panicking. MSTR bulls like Bitcoin OG Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, weighed in with a more optimistic view:
> “If mNAV drops below 1.0, they can just sell BTC and buy back MSTR stock — which actually increases BTC per share. It’s in shareholder interests. Or maybe people expect that and don’t let it drop. Either way, it’s manageable.”
It’s a high-stakes game — a fine line between aggressive financial engineering and risky leverage. And right now, the market’s starting to question whether these bitcoin treasury titans can keep it all together.
#TrumpTariffs #MarketPullback #ETHMarketWatch #BinanceAlphaAlert #BTCBreaksATH110K
