Bitcoin (BTC +3.79%) is enjoying the perfect tailwinds: massive institutional investment, geopolitical and macro uncertainty, US dollar weakness, regulatory clarity, and adoption by governments as a reserve currency.
All these factors together helped send Bitcoin to an all-time high (ATH) of almost $112,000 on May 22nd, 2025. As of writing, BTC/USD is trading at around $105,000, which is only about 6.2% off its ATH.
With its over 12% year-to-date (YTD) upside, Bitcoin is the biggest gainer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap and the 6th biggest gainer among the top 100 cryptos. Despite being a $2 trillion asset, Bitcoin is leading the market gains, which shows the massive momentum and capital allocation it is seeing at this time.
Bitcoin is among the very few established coins that have made new highs most recently, and that’s thanks to tens of billions of dollars that have flowed into Spot Bitcoin ETFs. But that’s not the only reason; another prominent factor behind the buying pressure has been companies making BTC part of their treasury.
Every day now, more and more companies are utilizing their financial resources, including cash flow, investments, and debt, to accumulate Bitcoin to improve the company’s profitability, mitigate financial risks, support long-term growth, and ensure financial stability.
The trend has picked up significant speed this year, with companies around the world turning to Bitcoin to protect as well as grow their capital.
This marks a shift away from the traditional conservative approach to managing cash by allocating capital to low-risk assets such as treasury bills, bank deposits, commercial paper, and money market funds. Uncertain economic factors like interest rates, inflation, and heightened geopolitical risks are what’s causing corporations to reconsider their strategies.
Here, Bitcoin, with its verifiable scarcity, neutrality, transparency, decentralization, and security, makes for an attractive store of value. The world’s largest cryptocurrency, whose price has gone from $100 to $100,000 in the past decade, offers a hedge against fiat currency debasement, growing fiscal deficits, and geopolitical risks.
Bitcoin’s unique properties have a growing number of corporate treasurers turning to the safety of BTC.
Besides Bitcoin’s price, numerous regulatory developments regarding digital assets, including Spot Bitcoin ETF approval in the US and MiCA in the EU, have given investors more confidence in BTC as an investment.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) also updated its guidelines for how companies should account for and report digital assets on their corporate balance sheets, allowing those who hold bitcoin to use fair value accounting and mark assets up to market.
The pro-crypto stance taken by the Trump administration, which involves making the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, is also supporting the ongoing massive interest in adding Bitcoin to the balance sheet.
The Genesis of Corporate Bitcoin Treasury Adoption
While there is currently a race to capture Bitcoin’s tremendous potential among corporations, it all started five years ago with Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR +4.71%) (formerly at MicroStrategy).
It was in the second half of 2020 that Strategy first adopted Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve. Between July and September 2020, Strategy bought 38,250 BTC for $425 million. At the time, the BTC price was worth only about $10K.
Around the same time, global payments company Block (SQ +0.57%), under X (formerly Twitter) co-founder Jack Dorsey’s leadership, made an initial $50 million investment in BTC.
This move complemented the company’s Bitcoin services offered via Cash App and ongoing development efforts through Spiral (Square Crypto). Since then, Block purchased another $170 million of Bitcoin in February 2021 and announced in 2024 that it would use 10% of its Bitcoin profits to buy more BTC to add to its balance sheet.
In 2021, Elon Musk’s Tesla securities_stock_price_tag symbol=”TSLA”] also bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin to diversify their holdings and maximize returns on cash. However, in Q2 of 2022, the electric car maker converted about 75% of its BTC into fiat currency at an average price of $20K, almost half of what it paid to buy BTC.
While Musk shared openness “to increasing our bitcoin holdings in the future,” the company hasn’t made any such efforts so far.
Unlike Tesla, Strategy continued to buy Bitcoin throughout all this time, with Saylor viewing Bitcoin as “digital capital and maybe the most explosive idea of the era.”
This aggressive buying resulted in Strategy amassing 580,955 BTC, representing 2.766% of the total Bitcoin supply.
This accumulation comes at an average purchase price of about $66K, which puts the total cost at just over $33 billion, while the holdings are currently worth $61 billion. These Bitcoin purchases are funded by various financial instruments, including convertible bonds and preferred stock.
Despite having accumulated this much Bitcoin, the company still isn’t done.
“We’ll keep buying bitcoin. We expect the price of bitcoin to keep going up. We think it will get exponentially harder to buy bitcoin, but we will work exponentially more efficiently to buy bitcoin.”
– Saylor told CNBC
While many are concerned about one single company owning this much Bitcoin and a potential liquidation event, this strategy has helped the company’s stock prices skyrocket.
In July 2020, MSTR stock was trading under $12, and as the BTC price continued to rise, so did the company shares. A couple of months before Bitcoin price hit $65,000 in mid-April 2021, MSTR price surpassed $131 in Feb. 2021.
Following Bitcoin’s lead, MSTR stocks had a subsequent downtrend, falling as low as about $13 in December 2022. From there, it began its new cycle to hit a peak above $542 in Nov. 2024. As of writing, MSTR is trading at $374.47.
MicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR +4.71%)
Since adopting Bitcoin as a treasury asset, Strategy has become the third-best-performing stock in the Russell 3000, delivering a return of a whopping 2,900% since August 2020.
According to Wells Fargo, having pioneered the use of equity markets to fund a bitcoin treasury, Strategy is now eyeing the $300 trillion global bond market with STRK and STRF, which “might be the most underappreciated bitcoin story of 2025.”
Given the massive success of Strategy, now others also want to copy this playbook.
The Institutional Stampede into Corporate Bitcoin Treasuries
While last cycle in 2021, there were only a handful of companies investing in Bitcoin, this time around, things are heating up to an unprecedented level.
Not just companies already in the crypto sector, such as crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN +2.13%) and crypto miners MARA Holdings (MARA +3.11%) and CleanSpark (CLSK +3.37%), but even those from the mainstream are adopting Bitcoin. In fact, more than a hundred publicly-listed companies have embraced the Bitcoin reserve strategy, giving investors new ways to get crypto exposure.
Just a week into June, and already many new names have popped up with their Bitcoin treasury plans.
On June 3rd, Canada’s renewable energy developer SolarBank announced that it has filed an account opening application with Coinbase Prime to provide a self-custodial wallet for its BTC holdings once it starts accumulating the asset.
On the same day as SolarBank, Paris-based crypto firm Blockchain Group (ALTBG) shared its $68 million worth of Bitcoin acquisition.
Europe’s first Bitcoin Treasury Company, however, is TBG, which had a €1M equity raise in Nov. 2024 at a 70% premium to buy 15 BTC. Another round of equity raise was followed by a BTC-denominated convertible bond that funded the company’s subsequent BTC acquisition. TBG is aiming to ultimately own between 170,000-260,000 BTC by 2033.
ALTBG’s move came right on the heels of the Norwegian crypto brokerage firm K33’s announcement that it had raised $6.2 million to buy BTC. Norwegian Block Exchange has also purchased Bitcoin and will be using it as collateral to issue a stablecoin (USDM) and generate yield on BTC.
Video retailer GameStop (GME +2.57%) and European football club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) are also among the new entrants, who announced their move late last month.
GameStop has purchased about $513 million worth of Bitcoin (4,710 BTC) in an attempt to capitalize on the growing trend of crypto adoption. The company, which was at the center of the 2021 meme-stock frenzy, first shared its plan to invest in the digital asset back in March and met with Saylor for the same.
PSG, meanwhile, announced its move at the recent Bitcoin 2025 conference. The club, which boasts over 550 million fans worldwide, first put BTC in its books last year in a move that Pär Helgosson, head of PSG Labs, calls a “new generation trend.”
US President Donald Trump’s firm, Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT +1.53%), has also stated that it is planning to raise $2.5 billion to buy Bitcoin in order to diversify its revenue. To raise the funds, the company will sell $1.5 billion in stock, and the rest will be raised in convertible notes priced at a 35% premium. Cryptocurrency platforms Crypto.com and Anchorage Digital will provide custody for the BTC holdings, which will go on Trump Media’s balance sheet alongside cash and short-term investments.
“We view bitcoin as an apex instrument of financial freedom,” said Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes and described it as a “big step forward” in the company’s plan to acquire “crown jewel assets consistent with America First principles.”
Meanwhile, Japanese hotel-management company Metaplanet, which first began purchasing bitcoin last year through equity sales and bonds, is now planning to raise $5.3 billion by issuing 555 million shares through stock acquisition rights.
“Bitcoin sets a new benchmark for capital formation.”
– CEO Simon Gerovich
Dubbed “Asia’s MicroStrategy,” Metaplanet currently holds 8,888 BTC worth about $934 million.
The Rise of Bitcoin-First Treasury Companies
Yet another big news in this space came with the launch of Twenty One a couple of months ago.
A newly formed Bitcoin company that has the backing of giants like stablecoin leader Tether, crypto exchange Bitfinex, and Japanese investment firm SoftBank, is going public through a merger with the Cantor Equity Partners SPAC. Expected to launch with over 42,000 BTC on its balance sheet, this will make Twenty One the third-largest corporate holder of the asset globally.
Twenty One, unlike other companies that are buying Bitcoin, is a pure-play Bitcoin accumulation vehicle seeded with BTC and aims to create Bitcoin-native financial products.
Earlier last month, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy also revealed the plans for his asset management firm Strive, which is going public through a reverse merger with Asset Entities, to issue about $1 billion in equity and debt, and then use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin.
The asset manager “intends to use all available mechanisms to build a Bitcoin war chest,” said the company, adding that it aims to “build a long-term investment approach designed to outperform Bitcoin.”
Strive manages about $2 billion in net assets across different funds. In Dec. it filed to list an ETF that invests in convertible bonds issued by corporate BTC buyers like Strategy. It now plans to enable Bitcoin holders to contribute BTC “in exchange for public stock through a structure that is intended to be tax-free.”
The same month, KindlyMD (KDLY -15.87%) entered into a merger agreement with David Bailey’s Nakamoto Holdings to start a Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Nakamoto is a new Bitcoin-native company working towards building a global network of Bitcoin treasury companies, in partnership with BTC Inc., to accelerate the cryptocurrency’s utility and adoption.
The merger of Nakamoto and healthcare company KindlyMD will focus on accumulating Bitcoin and increasing the Bitcoin yield through various debt, equity, preferred share, and other offerings, providing public market exposure to BTC within a compliant and transparent structure.
“Traditional finance and Bitcoin-native markets are converging. The securitization of Bitcoin will redraw the world’s economic map. We believe a future is coming where every balance sheet – public or private – holds Bitcoin. Nakamoto seeks to be the first publicly traded conglomerate designed to accelerate that.”
– Bailey, founder and CEO of Nakamoto.
Wells Fargo (WFC +0.17%) estimates that Strive, Twenty One, and Nakamoto can potentially raise a combined $25 billion.
The Tipping Point of Corporate Bitcoin Treasury Adoption
While the growing popularity of Bitcoin as a treasury asset offers a buying pressure and fuel to send prices higher, investment bank Standard Chartered has raised a warning about potential risks arising from this rapid corporate adoption.
According to Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital asset research:
“Bitcoin treasuries are adding to Bitcoin buying pressure for now, but we see a risk that this may reverse over time.”
The analyst noted in his report that just 61 publicly-listed companies are now holding a combined 673,897 Bitcoin, which is 3.2% of the total supply that’ll ever exist. Also, the vast majority of these (58 corporate treasuries) have net asset value (NAV) multiples above 1, which means their market valuation is greater than the value of their net assets.
For instance, Strategy trades at twice the value of its BTC holdings, as per VanEck analysis.
Cosmo Jiang of Pantera Capital doesn’t see the problem as “purchases into these vehicles effectively lock supply away, with a low likelihood of being sold because these are effectively one-way closed-end funds.”
However, a sizable downturn in crypto prices, which isn’t out of the ordinary for the industry and is seen in every cycle, and a resulting drop in the shares of these Bitcoin treasury companies offering leveraged bets can start a vicious cycle.
“For now, we think this is justified by market inefficiencies, including regulatory hurdles to investor access and conservative investment committee processes. But as these inefficiencies are eventually removed, we think Bitcoin treasuries could become a source of downside price pressure and volatility.”
– Kendrick
The volatility can cause the price of Bitcoin to fall below the average purchase prices of these new treasures. Half of these companies have an average purchase price above $90K.
These Strategy “imitators”, Kendrick noted, have only started accumulating BTC recently, with the amount of Bitcoin held by those 60 companies doubling, from under 50,000 BTC to about 100,000 BTC, only in the past two months. This accumulation speed is even greater than that of Strategy, he added.
Despite all the concerns, Saylor remains firm in his belief and says that even if Bitcoin price plummets 90% and stays there for several years, the company’s capital structure will remain stable.
“It wouldn’t be a good outcome for the equity holders. The people at the top of the capital structure would suffer because they’re levered, but everybody else in the capital structure would get paid out.”
– Saylor
Among those not concerned is also Wells Fargo, which expects to see even more of what it calls “Bitcoin Treasury Corps” as long as public markets continue to assign a premium to their BTC holdings.
According to Wells Fargo, this new category of companies, which are using “capital markets to build bitcoin holdings,” shows that the largest cryptocurrency by market cap is “becoming institutionalized.”
The growing number of these newly minted corporations, according to the TradFi giant, is “more important” than Coinbase’s inclusion in the S&P 500, which is seen as “a key symbolic milestone.”
Wells Fargo actually sees these companies having an even greater impact than ETFs, which hold $125.5 billion in total assets. The bank said:
“If ETFs are a bridge between investment capital and bitcoin, the flood of new bitcoin treasury corps may become an even bigger source of AUM.”
$330 billion in capital inflow is what Bernstein is predicting the demand from companies will bring into Bitcoin in the next four years, which would be bullish for BTC’s price.
According to the asset manager, approximately 2,000 global companies with market caps under $100 billion, sharing features such as low leverage, low growth, and substantial cash reserves, could be prime candidates for adopting Bitcoin, which can serve as a lifeline for them. But replicating Strategy’s success won’t be easy, it said.
Latest Bitcoin (BTC) News and Developments
Bitcoin’s Ascent to Institutional Treasury Legitimacy
As Bitcoin’s fresh ATHs ignite FOMO among institutions and corporations alike, the “digital gold” narrative is gaining strength amidst the macro and geopolitical uncertainty. This has resulted in a growing number of companies that are adopting Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.
Bitcoin treasury corporations have taken the world by storm, capturing both attention and capital. And this trend is not showing any signs of slowing down, not anytime soon, which means more exciting things are ahead for the crypto industry!
Click here to learn all about investing in Bitcoin (BTC).