In the world of cryptocurrency, 'narrative' has always been the core determinant of an asset's vitality. While the market is still buzzing over Ethereum's (ETH) new high traffic and the fervor of the crossover between AI and Crypto, a grander narrative, more closely tied to the core of capital power, has quietly emerged — it is no longer limited to the technical competition of a single public chain, but attempts to forge crypto assets like XRP, BNB, LINK, and BONK directly into the core assets of publicly listed companies on Wall Street.
This is the 'open conspiracy' of Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATs). This article will take Solana (SOL) as the core sample to dissect this gamble led by industry veterans like Pantera Capital, Arthur Hayes, and Li Lin: can it propel crypto assets towards a trillion-dollar market value, or is it just a castle in the air wrapped in regulatory arbitrage bubbles?
From 'MicroStrategy model' to 'multi-coin treasury': a comprehensive upgrade of capital narratives. To understand the logic of crypto treasuries, we must return to its source — Michael Saylor and his MicroStrategy.
Saylor pioneered a simple yet impactful model: transforming a traditional listed company into a de facto 'Bitcoin leverage fund.' By continuously increasing its Bitcoin holdings and incorporating them into its balance sheet, MicroStrategy not only reshaped its valuation logic but also provided a model for the entire crypto industry for 'the compliance of crypto assets.'
Today, this 'Saylor script' is being frantically copied and upgraded, with its coverage long exceeding the boundaries of Bitcoin, and the era of 'any coin can be a treasury' has already arrived:
The vanguard of Solana: Nasdaq-listed companies represented by DeFi Development Corp. (DFDV) and Sharps Technology are raising billions of dollars through stock issuance and private financing, and the sole purpose of these funds is to bulk purchase SOL and convert it into the company's core reserves.
The rise of diversified treasuries: The treasury model is no longer exclusive to Solana.
The concepts of XRP treasury, LINK treasury, BONK treasury, and BNB treasury have emerged successively, with a highly consistent underlying logic: as long as a certain type of crypto asset has strong community consensus and network value, it has the potential to become the 'strategic reserve asset' of a listed company.
The systematic layout of top capital: The launch of 'Solana Co' by Pantera Capital, Summer Flame Capital, and Li Lin’s Avenir Group is just the tip of the iceberg. Top global crypto capital and traditional financial forces are hand in hand selecting targets, trying to lock in crypto assets with 'treasury potential' before the birth of 'the next MicroStrategy.'
It is evident that this is no longer a scattered market experiment, but a well-organized and premeditated 'asset class migration' led by capital giants — crypto assets are jumping from being a 'configuration option' for individual investors and niche funds to becoming 'strategic core assets' for listed companies. Why now? The explosion of the crypto treasury narrative is based on three underlying logics. The outbreak of this treasury movement is not accidental. By combining the core views from the QCP Group (Corporate Treasury New Alpha: Digital Assets) report, we can clearly see the macro background of enterprises incorporating crypto assets into their treasuries, while the characteristics of different crypto assets also provide differentiated support for this narrative.
1. Liquidity revolution: From 'static storage' to 'dynamic earning.' Bitcoin's core logic as a treasury asset is built on its 'digital gold' value storage (SoV) attribute — essentially 'static holding,' resisting fiat inflation through long-term value preservation. However, the core of the new generation treasury narrative emphasizes the 'productivity' of assets.
Taking Solana as an example, its treasury company SOL Strategies can continuously generate new SOL as income through staking the SOL it holds; Chainlink (LINK) can earn income by participating in node services through staking; BNB can earn new coin rewards by staking into the Launchpool... These PoS mechanisms or functional tokens have completely rewritten the positioning of the treasury: it is no longer a 'vault for storing assets' but a 'dynamic factory' that can continuously create cash flow, bringing endogenous compound growth to the company.
2. Ecological binding: From 'holding assets' to 'building business empires.' The ambition of the treasury model goes beyond 'holding + staking.' Current leading treasury companies are actively binding assets with ecological applications, constructing network effects through the 'treasury - application - ecosystem' flywheel.
Taking Solana treasury company DFDV as an example, it promotes payment, DeFi, and other scenarios within the Solana ecosystem by integrating the stablecoin USDG — this not only allows the treasury company to profit directly from the business but also enhances the network value of SOL (the more usage scenarios, the stronger the token demand). Similarly, in the future, XRP treasury companies may deeply participate in Ripple’s cross-border payment network, while BNB treasury companies could collaborate with the Binance ecosystem to form a closed loop that empowers both 'treasury assets' and 'business ecology.'
3. Capital demands: Wall Street needs 'new stories.' The approval of Bitcoin ETFs has opened the first door for institutional capital to enter the crypto market, but Wall Street is always chasing higher-yielding 'Alpha opportunities.' The narrative of Bitcoin as 'digital gold' has matured relatively, while assets like Solana, Chainlink, and BNB just happen to provide the capital market with growth stories that have more imaginative potential — they not only have the potential for price volatility gains but also opportunities for 'value reassessment' brought by ecological expansion and functional landing.
For funds seeking diversified allocations, these crypto assets have a low correlation with traditional assets (stocks, bonds), and each possesses different growth drivers (such as Solana relying on ecology, Chainlink relying on oracle networks), becoming important choices for optimizing investment portfolios and improving capital efficiency.
Shadows under the sun: Regulatory arbitrage and risks that cannot be ignored. The narrative of crypto treasuries seems perfect, but behind the capital carnival, sharp questions and potential risks have never disappeared.
Risk 1: The 'temporary advantage' of regulatory arbitrage. Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store, bluntly stated: 'The prosperity of digital asset treasury companies is essentially a regulatory arbitrage.' Currently, the U.S. SEC has not approved the spot ETFs of the vast majority of altcoins, and traditional investors cannot directly invest in assets like SOL and XRP through compliant stock accounts — while treasury companies happen to fill this gap, becoming the 'quasi ETF' or 'proxy ETF' for investors to indirectly hold crypto assets.
But this advantage is temporary: once the SEC approves more spot ETFs for crypto assets in the future, investors will gain a more direct, lower-cost (without bearing the operating costs of treasury companies), and purer risk (only tied to asset prices, not involving company operational risks) investment tool. At that time, the 'premium' of treasury company stocks relative to the crypto assets they hold will no longer exist, and their attractiveness will significantly decline.
Risk 2: Additional risks brought by 'derivative attributes.' Geraci pointed out another key issue: the stocks of treasury companies are essentially 'derivatives' of the crypto assets they hold, but with an added layer of 'company-specific risk (Idiosyncratic Risk).'
When investors buy shares in a Solana treasury company, their bets contain two layers: first, the future price trend of SOL; second, the treasury company's management capability — including the team's decision-making level (when to increase/decrease holdings), operational efficiency (cost control), financing capability, and even moral hazards (such as insider trading, interest transmission). The company's operating costs, management salaries, and erroneous strategic decisions (such as blind expansion and high leverage increases) could erode treasury value, leading to a 'decoupling' of stock prices from crypto asset prices — even if SOL rises, the treasury company stock price may still fall.
Risk 3: The vulnerability of the 'value storage' consensus. Nick Tomaino, founder of 1confirmation, raised a more fundamental question: 'The premise of the treasury model is that the market recognizes crypto assets as having the function of 'value storage' — and this, except for Bitcoin, has not been time-tested for other assets.'
Bitcoin took more than a decade to construct the consensus of 'digital gold,' and its value storage attributes have been recognized by some institutions. However, the consensus around assets like Solana, XRP, and Chainlink is largely built on 'application scenarios,' 'ecological scale,' or 'community culture,' making their stability as 'long-term reserve assets' far inferior to Bitcoin. For example, Solana has experienced significant price volatility due to network congestion and security incidents, while XRP has faced long-standing litigation disputes with the SEC — these risks could shake the value foundation of 'treasury assets.'
Even with industry giants backing them, ordinary investors' concerns about 'insider risks' cannot be completely eliminated: will the management of treasury companies use their informational advantages to trade ahead of ordinary shareholders? Is the asset custody safe? These questions still lack clear answers.
Final thoughts: The future of the multi-coin treasury depends on three core issues. The wave of 'any coin can be a treasury' is the most daring and systematic 'cross-border' attempt in the crypto industry's development to date — it is no longer satisfied with building applications in the crypto-native world but is trying to directly transform the core units of traditional finance (listed companies), allowing crypto assets to truly integrate into the mainstream capital system.
But the ultimate success or failure of this gamble depends on the answers to three key questions:
The foundation of asset value: Can the selected crypto assets (such as SOL, XRP) continue to prove their irreplaceable network value in future public chain competition and regulatory pressure? This is the '1' of the treasury model; without it, all subsequent narratives are castles in the air. The company's 'added value' capability: Can the management team of the treasury company create value that goes beyond 'passive holding + staking'?
For example, enhancing asset liquidity through ecological operations and business landing, or reducing costs through refined management — this is the key to their survival after the popularization of ETFs. The regulatory 'traffic lights': How will global regulatory policies evolve? Will they recognize the compliance of the treasury model or restrict its development through new regulations? This is an external variable that decides everything and is also the most unpredictable risk.
The story of crypto treasuries has just begun; it may be a milestone for the crypto industry to step into the mainstream, or it may be another bubble after the capital carnival — the answer can only be verified by time and the market.
