The new pattern of the crypto market in the DAT era

Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) strategies are redefining the capital narrative in the crypto market. Over the past three months, this new wave has injected continuous funding into mainstream altcoins and prompted numerous listed companies to view crypto assets as a core component of their corporate financial strategies. In simple terms, DAT is a new financial model where publicly traded companies incorporate cryptocurrencies into their balance sheets, financing purchases, holding long-term, and participating in ecosystem revenues.

Bitcoin’s Four-Wheel Drive Foundation

To understand why the DAT strategy will explode in 2025, we need to look at the four main pillars supporting Bitcoin’s current bull market.

Long-term Holders’ Conviction Consensus

Long-term holders (LTH) play the role of “stabilizers” in the Bitcoin market. On-chain data shows that after the last cycle’s winter, LTH BTC holdings surpassed 14.52 million coins in Q4 2023, reaching a historic peak. These investors’ “diamond hands” characteristics have built a solid circulating supply foundation, forming an unshakable bottom support.

Capital Inflows from Traditional Financial Giants

Starting in 2024, giants like BlackRock and Fidelity launched spot Bitcoin ETFs. In just three months, these ETFs bought over $15 billion worth of BTC, with net purchases totaling over 596,300 BTC (market cap over $150 billion). This event has fundamentally changed the capital structure of the crypto market, bringing sustained buying power from traditional institutions.

Innovations in Corporate Treasury

MicroStrategy pioneered the Bitcoin Treasury strategy, creating a “three-wheel drive” capital model driven by stocks, bonds, and coins. The core logic is: issuing zero-coupon convertible bonds and additional stock to raise funds, purchasing large amounts of BTC, boosting stock prices and corporate valuation, then leveraging the increased stock value for new financing rounds. MicroStrategy has accumulated over 628,200 BTC, inspiring more than 134 listed companies to follow suit, with total BTC reserves among listed companies reaching 949,000 coins.

National Strategic Reserves

In early 2025, the U.S. government announced the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. This move endowed BTC with an unprecedented national narrative, elevating it from a mere asset class to a geopolitical tool. Bitcoin’s price surged past the $120,000 mark.

With these four drivers working together, Bitcoin entered a new phase. However, the momentum pushing BTC higher is waning, and market focus is shifting: where is the next growth engine? The answer lies in the replication of the DAT strategy on altcoins.

DAT Strategy Ignites Altcoin Markets

Ethereum’s “Twin Treasury Giants” Rise

Although Ethereum received approval for a spot ETF in 2024, it failed to boost the ETH/BTC exchange rate, which continued to weaken. The turning point came in April 2025, when the DAT strategy began to be implemented on ETH.

SharpLink Gaming (SBET) announced on May 27, 2025, a $425 million financing round dedicated to purchasing ETH as the company’s main treasury asset. The round was led by Consensys, with co-investors including Pantera Capital, ParaFi Capital, Galaxy Digital, and other crypto institutions. Notably, the company appointed Joseph Lubin as Chairman. Lubin, who joined the Ethereum development team as early as 2013, is widely regarded as one of Ethereum’s co-founders. He founded Consensys in 2015, incubating projects like MetaMask and Linea. SharpLink’s ETH holdings have reached 428,200 coins, becoming the first institution to surpass the Ethereum Foundation.

On June 30, 2025, BitMine raised $250 million to launch its ETH treasury strategy, backed by investors including Pantera Capital, Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, and legendary Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, as well as Ark Investment. BitMine appointed former JPMorgan chief equity strategist Tomas Jong Lee as Chairman. Within just one month, BitMine’s ETH holdings expanded to 625,000 coins, surpassing SharpLink and the Ethereum Foundation, becoming the largest corporate holder of ETH.

The emergence of these “twin giants” not only brought in obvious capital inflows but also attracted companies like The Ether Machine, Bit Digital, BTCS Inc., GameSquare Holdings, and InChains Group to initiate ETH treasury strategies. The downward trend of ETH prices was completely reversed, and key figures like Tomas Jong Lee and Joseph Lubin have effectively become the decision-makers in ETH valuation.

Altcoin Camp Fully Advancing

Ethereum’s success has inspired other mainstream altcoins to follow suit.

DAT in the Solana Ecosystem

As of now, eight companies have launched Strategic SOL Reserves, collectively holding over 3 million SOL. Among them, DeFi Development Corps (DFDV) received investment from Pantera Capital in April 2025, becoming the first U.S.-listed company to use SOL as a reserve asset. The DFDV team mostly comes from Kraken’s senior management; their CFO previously operated Solana validator nodes, with deep understanding of the Solana ecosystem. Currently, DFDV’s SOL reserves have reached 99,900 coins, with the stock price increasing over 20 times in the past six months.

Upexi increased its SOL holdings from 73,500 to 1.8 million between April and July 2025. Nearly all of these SOL are staked, generating approximately $26 million annually at an 8% annual yield.

SOL Strategies Inc. (HODL) issued $500 million in convertible bonds in early 2025 to establish a SOL treasury, holding about 260,000 SOL, mostly staked in institutional validator nodes, with a blended yield of 6%-8%.

Other Mainstream Projects’ DAT Deployments

Projects like BNB, ENA, and Hyperliquid have also seen institutions initiate corresponding token DAT strategies. For example, CEA Industries Inc (VAPE) participates in BNB treasury, Sonnet Bio Therapeutics (SONN) received Paradigm investment to participate in Hyperliquid treasury, and StablecoinX is involved in ENA treasury. The participation of these projects has transformed DAT from a Bitcoin case into a collective movement among altcoins.

Divergence Between ETH and SOL Paradigms

The DAT strategy is not uniform; it has evolved into two distinct paradigms based on the underlying asset characteristics.

Bitcoin Paradigm: “Digital Gold” Premium Leverage

MicroStrategy’s success established the Bitcoin DAT paradigm. The company operates via a “triple flywheel”: stock-coin resonance flywheel (rising stock price boosts BTC value), stock-bond synergy flywheel (convertible bonds attract arbitrage capital), coin-bond arbitrage flywheel (financing costs lower than BTC appreciation gains). MicroStrategy captures three types of capital through tiered sales: preferred stocks for fixed-income investors, convertibles for arbitrage funds, and stocks for risk-takers.

This model has successfully run over a cycle (4 years), creating a spiral of rising stocks and coins. Its core is leveraging Bitcoin’s “digital gold” anti-inflation properties combined with financial leverage to grow assets.

Ethereum Paradigm: “Digital Sovereign Bonds” with Stable Returns

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum’s PoS consensus mechanism allows staking to generate on-chain yields, making ETH more like “digital sovereign bonds,” with an annualized staking yield of about 4%. Listed companies’ ETH reserves benefit from both price appreciation and stable staking income.

Solana’s DAT strategy is similar to Ethereum’s, with annual staking yields of 6%-8%. The upcoming launch of a SOL spot ETF in the second half of the year is highly anticipated by the market.

Risks Behind DAT Strategies

While DAT strategies bring solid buying support and traditional capital attention to the crypto market, they also contain significant risks.

False Prosperity from “Foot on Both Pedals”

Many altcoin DAT strategies’ initial funding does not come from genuine new buying but from project foundations, major token investors, or core ecosystem nodes. For example, Hyperliquid’s DAT financing funds are directly injected via Paradigm’s HYPE tokens; Ethena’s DAT funds come from PIPE investors’ ENA tokens. These are not truly new purchases but reallocation of existing funds, which can create false prosperity.

Reflexivity Risks at the Minsky Moment

DAT strategies heavily depend on feedback mechanisms in capital markets. There is a tight loop among token prices, stock market caps, and refinancing capacity: when positive, token prices rise → stock value increases → corporate refinancing ability improves → more crypto assets purchased → token prices continue to rise. Conversely, if this cycle reverses, a chain reaction occurs: token prices fall → per-share value shrinks → stock market caps decline → corporate financing weakens → forced liquidation of crypto assets → further price drops. The destructive power of this spiral downward cannot be underestimated.

Financial Flexibility Decides the Outcome

The current crypto bull market’s success no longer depends solely on technological innovation and application deployment but increasingly on “financial allocability.” The widespread adoption of DAT strategies means market funds will concentrate on a few tokens suitable for inclusion in corporate balance sheets.

This reveals a harsh reality: not all tokens will benefit from the DAT era. Only projects with the following traits will stand out—liquidity, large market cap, ecosystem stability, and ability to generate stable cash flow or staking yields. Under this selection mechanism, the market will exhibit a “the strong get stronger” effect: leading tokens benefit from continuous institutional capital inflows, while other projects risk marginalization.

The emergence of DAT strategies marks a new era in crypto—shifting from a purely speculative market to an institutional asset allocation market. By 2026, the fate of projects will depend not only on technology but also on financial design and capital attraction.