In 2025, digital asset treasuries (DATs) broke into the mainstream, as publicly traded companies increasingly began treating cryptocurrencies as core balance-sheet assets, rather than just speculative or experimental.
The model, originally adopted by Michael Saylor’s Strategy in 2020, involves publicly traded companies, usually with non-crypto-related businesses, accumulating and holding cryptocurrency as a primary corporate treasury asset. This gives holders of the DAT company's stock at least indirect exposure to cryptocurrency prices, without directly holding any crypto.
Strategy remains the largest player in the DAT sector in terms of the dollar value of its crypto holdings, with over $62 billion in BTC at the time of writing. It's followed by Ethereum-focused DAT BitMine Immersion, chaired by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, with about $13.47 billion in crypto holdings. The majority of Bitmine’s treasury is in ETH, but the firm holds a small amount of BTC on its balance sheet as well.
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