Only four of the 20 largest digital asset treasury companies trade above the value of their crypto holdings, according to a Sept. 24 report by DWF Ventures. The finding exposes a structural constraint on the sector's core growth model: issuing equity to accumulate tokens loses its arithmetic when the stock itself trades at a discount.

DWF ranked the companies by assets under management and restricted its sample to publicly listed firms whose primary business is accumulating and managing digital assets — not every company that happens to hold crypto on its balance sheet. Only Bit Digital, Strive, Hyperliquid Strategies and BitMine sat above their holdings value in the firm's chart.

What does a discount actually break?

The mechanism is straightforward. When a treasury company sells new shares above the value of the tokens backing them, it funds purchases that increase tokens per share. When it sells below that value to buy the same asset, the transaction reduces tokens per share before fees and other balance-sheet changes.

Companies can still raise capital. But the simple share-funded accumulation strategy no longer works on the same terms, because each discounted issuance dilutes the underlying token claim of existing holders.

DWF calls its measure market-to-net-asset value, or mNAV: equity market capitalization divided by the market value of crypto holdings. A reading below one means the equity is worth less than the tokens it holds. The calculation carries an important caveat — it excludes debt and preferred-stock structures, so it does not capture the net assets available to common shareholders after those claims.

Is Strategy still buying?

A separate check of CoinGecko's Strategy page on Sept. 24 showed an equity market capitalization of $57.91 billion against Bitcoin holdings valued at $70.87 billion. Dividing those figures under DWF's definition gives an indicative ratio of roughly 0.82 — an 18% discount. CoinGecko's own displayed mNAV differs because it uses enterprise value, adjusting for debt and cash rather than equity value alone.

Strategy's Sept. 21 SEC filing confirms the 846,000 BTC holdings count shown by CoinGecko. The filing also demonstrates why a discount need not halt token purchases: the company bought 950 BTC for $75.7 million between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20 using existing cash, while selling no shares through its at-the-market offering program.

The same document shows competing demands on that cash. Strategy spent $174 million repurchasing STRC preferred shares during the week and used a further $57.4 million from its dollar reserve for preferred dividends and debt interest. It ended the period with $5.04 billion in that reserve and $1.05 billion in separately designated cash.

What comes next for the treasury model?

The operational picture is therefore split. Most of the largest digital asset treasury companies can no longer issue equity accretively, while the sector's largest player continues buying from cash reserves that are themselves committed to preferred dividends, debt interest and buybacks. Whether the broader cohort can sustain token accumulation without a recovery in equity valuations — or must pivot to debt, preferred structures or operational income — will shape the sector's balance-sheet architecture over the coming quarters.