Dead Money? Five Strategies Left for Bitcoin Treasury Companies at Steep Discounts

Before the Consensus Catches Up

When Grayscale’s GBTC was trading at a 47% discount in December 2022, we flagged it as an extraordinary opportunity. Investors could effectively buy Bitcoin at below $10,000 per coin. Closed-end funds routinely trade at a discount to NAV, but this one was so extreme that the investment thesis required only a single modest assumption: that GBTC would eventually convert to an ETF, within a 24-year window, if necessary, at which point the discount would collapse to zero and more than offset the 2% annual management fee.

That thesis played out. The discount narrowed sharply a year later as ETF approval came into view, and the following period saw dramatic NAV expansion across similar structures. Investors had convinced themselves that TradFi crypto wrappers were themselves a leveraged bet on the underlying asset, a premium on top of a premium.

They were not. These structures behave more like options: when volatility is elevated, implied value inflates; when volatility compresses, it deflates. This is why, a year ago, we warned that MicroStrategy’s NAV premium would compress sharply, a call made when the stock was trading at $400, just as Bitcoin’s volatility began its sustained decline. By August 2025, we went further, cautioning that NAV premiums across Bitcoin and Ethereum treasury vehicles could flip negative entirely, with many investors facing steep losses.

Those losses have arrived. But the picture is beginning to shift again, and for opportunistically well-positioned management teams, the dislocation now presents a fresh opportunity. A single announcement could double your money. Which of the five will it be? As before, the gains will likely come at the expense of investors who do not understand what they own.

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