After traditional encryption methods such as brand renaming and buyback destruction gradually lose effectiveness, a more capital operation-oriented coin-stock model has begun to rise, even becoming a new narrative engine for encryption projects.

From finance to technology, from healthcare to entertainment, an increasing number of publicly listed companies are following the path of MicroStrategy by incorporating crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, SOL, and TRX into their balance sheets, initiating a capital game of revaluation. In this article, PANews has compiled a list of 30 US-listed companies that have officially announced crypto reserve plans.

From financial strategy to valuation logic, small and medium-sized market capitalization companies are collectively replicating the “MicroStrategy effect”.

As a pioneer of the coin-stock strategy, Strategy was the first to incorporate Bitcoin into its balance sheet back in August 2020. This radical move was seen at the time as an alternative financial experiment. However, five years later, what was once a niche strategy is evolving into a mainstream narrative path that companies across industries are competing to replicate. An increasing number of enterprises, especially small and medium market capitalization listed companies, are beginning to integrate encryption assets into their reserve systems, attempting to reconstruct their valuation logic through “encryption reserves + capital market leverage.”

From the current statistics of 30 publicly listed companies in the US stock market, in addition to technology and fintech companies represented by Strategy, BTCS, and DeFi Technologies, traditional industries such as healthcare, biopharmaceuticals, e-commerce, education, new energy vehicles, agricultural products trading, and entertainment media are also gradually incorporating encryption assets into their asset allocation.

Most of these companies face common challenges such as sluggish growth in their main business, stagnant valuations, and insufficient liquidity, including SharpLink Gaming, Semler Scientific, Kindly MD, Quantum BioPharma, and Silo Pharma. Against the backdrop of obstacles in traditional pathways, deploying encryption assets is both a financial strategy and an attempt to reshape the narrative in the capital markets. Taking SharpLink Gaming as an example, the company was on the verge of delisting due to underperformance, but after announcing Ethereum as its main reserve asset by the end of 2024, it quickly secured financing agreements of up to $425 million, with market attention sharply increasing, and its market capitalization skyrocketing from $2 million to tens of millions of dollars, completely restructuring the valuation logic.

Currently, the reserve structure of encryption assets still relies heavily on Bitcoin as the absolute market maker. According to statistical results, about 20 listed companies have explicitly included BTC in their asset baskets, including Strategy, GameStop, Trump Media, Rumble, Next Technology Holding, Cantor Equity, and others. Ethereum is gradually becoming the second most popular reserve asset, with companies like BTCS, Treasure Global, and SharpLink Gaming choosing to allocate ETH. Some companies opt for a more diversified asset combination strategy, such as DeFi Technologies, Siebert Financial, and Interactive Strength, constructing a mixed encryption reserve through Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other tokens, or seeking a balance between risk resistance and market speculation potential.

From a time dimension perspective, although the Strategy initiated Bitcoin reserves as early as 2020, there have been few responders in the following years. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter of 2024 that Bitcoin prices returned to high levels, leading to a significant rise in the Strategy’s stock price, driving the big pump in its coin-stock model return, and the encryption reserve trend entered a period of intensive explosion.

Most of the companies in this batch have a market capitalization concentrated between 100 million and 1 billion dollars, with reserve targets ranging from a few million to several billion dollars. Among them, Strategy’s Bitcoin reserve target reaches as high as 10 billion dollars, Cantor Equity at 3 billion dollars, and Trump Media at 2.5 billion dollars. It is worth noting that the reserve targets of some companies are far higher than their market capitalization, creating a significant risk leverage effect. Although this can stimulate market speculation expectations, it also exacerbates the risk of valuation bubble.

From the stock price performance, most companies experienced a short-term strong explosion after releasing reserve plans, with an average maximum rise of 438.53%. Among them, Strategy reached a maximum rise of 4315.85% since its first release; Asset Entities at 2096.72%; SharpLink Gaming at 1747.62%; and Kindly MD at 791.54%. However, there are also many companies whose stock prices have not changed much, such as SIEB, SILO, and DTCK, as the market may lack confidence in their continued execution capability and narrative credibility.

Of course, in addition to the reserve behavior itself, some companies further amplify their market effects due to strategic support from encryption giants or well-known capital. For example, SharpLink Gaming has formed a strategic partnership with well-known organizations like ConsenSys, gaining endorsement from the Ethereum ecosystem; Cantor Equity Partners merged with Twenty One Capital and launched a BTC reserve strategy, supported by Tether, SoftBank, and Brandon Lutnick, the son of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce; SRM Entertainment plans to use TRX as its core reserve asset and announced support from TRON founder Justin Sun, with the company’s trading volume on June 17 even surpassing that of Alibaba and Tencent at one point. This injection of encryption background provides companies with ecological discourse power beyond financial configuration, enhancing the linkage intensity between their on-chain assets and capital markets.

It can be seen that more and more listed companies are no longer satisfied with merely including mainstream encryption assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in their balance sheets, but are beginning to allocate emerging encryption assets such as XRP, SOL, TRON, and HYPE. In the future, encryption projects may become a new trend by lobbying or seeking listed companies to establish reserves.

Overall, the collective influx of listed companies into the encryption reserve field appears to be an acknowledgment of crypto assets, but behind it is a skilled use of capital market mechanisms, especially in the context of weak performance and constrained market capitalization. Popular plays like coin stocks can largely reshape their valuation logic. In the short term, this provides new financing paths and narrative outlets for many small and medium-sized companies; in the long term, whether the corporate reserve structure is sustainable, whether assets appreciate, and whether on-chain behavior is transparent will become the key factors determining whether this trend can develop healthily.

“Eating into the ‘cake’ of listed companies’? Market risks and manipulation controversies coexist.

As the trend of enterprises incorporating encryption assets into their balance sheets rapidly spreads, it has also sparked widespread controversy in the market regarding risk management, market manipulation, and institutional adaptability.

Bitcoin advocate and CEO of Bitcoin Magazine David Bailey views this trend as a paradigm shift in capital structure. He bluntly stated, “Whenever one of our Bitcoin treasury reserve companies is included in an index, a traditional company that does not hold Bitcoin gets kicked out. Sorry, your liquidity has now become Bitcoin’s liquidity. Join or be eliminated.”

Blockstream CEO Adam Back also issued a similar warning, “Bitcoin treasury reserve companies are continuously eating into the cake of publicly listed companies. If you ignore this century’s biggest arbitrage opportunity, the reallocation of capital will ultimately leave you behind. This is not actually a ‘choice.’”

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, believes that in every market cycle, founders chase the flow of hot money. In the last cycle, issuing tokens was the hot topic as the encryption capital market was exceptionally active; while in this round, introducing tokens to the stock market (similar to the finance company model) has become a new trend. He pointed out that hot money never stays in one place for long, which is also why the finance company model will not become the final model, but he expects this trend to continue for 1-2 years until the heat dissipates.

Regarding the risk management of encryption reserve enterprises, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor suggested, “Publishing on-chain reserve proofs is not a good idea.” He pointed out that publicly disclosing wallet addresses may pose a long-term tracking risk for institutions. If the liabilities audited by the Big Four accounting firms are not disclosed, the reserve information alone is meaningless.

Binance founder CZ also emphasized on social media that “these companies are taking risks. Every company will take risks. Risk is not a binary state of either 0 or 1. Risk is a range from 0 to 100. As long as you find the right balance, you can achieve the best risk/return on investment (risk/ROI) ratio that suits you. Risk can/must be managed. Not taking risks is also a kind of risk.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed in a Q&A that he had considered allocating up to 80% of the balance sheet to Bitcoin, but ultimately decided against this aggressive plan, “because that could ruin the company.” He explained that in the early stages, if the BTC price suddenly dropped, the company’s funding runway could shrink from 18 months to just 10 months, which would affect financing and business development. He further pointed out that the company does hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet, with about 25% of its net cash held in encryption. “We won’t put 80% into it, I think that’s too risky.”

Regarding some small and mid-sized listed companies announcing large reserve allocations to altcoins, VanEck’s head of digital assets, Matthew Sigel, pointed out that these companies claim to purchase tokens worth hundreds of millions of dollars (such as XRP and SOL). These so-called reserve plans are likely just a means to inflate the stock prices of small market capitalization companies, many of which are traded on Nasdaq. “Many are insiders trying to pump prices for sell-off; if the market capitalization is negligible and there are no disclosures of new investors, I would consider this a scam.”

In a recent report, digital asset bank Sygnum warned about the expansion of this leverage model, stating that companies like Strategy are continuously increasing their Bitcoin holdings through leveraged methods such as issuing bonds, moving away from traditional corporate financial strategies. This practice may undermine the applicability of Bitcoin as a central bank reserve asset, and excessive centralized holdings could lead to decreased market liquidity and increased price volatility, thereby affecting the allocation willingness of institutions such as central banks.

Bitcoin’s early advocate Max Keiser also questioned the emerging Bitcoin financial companies that mimic the Strategy route, believing they have not yet undergone a true bear market test. He emphasized, “Saylor has never sold Bitcoin during a bear market, but has continued to buy. Only those companies that remain steadfast in their positions during the most difficult moments of the market can be called true believers in the Bitcoin treasury.”

Overall, encryption assets are rising from financial reserves to corporate strategy, but the success or failure of the strategy ultimately depends on the market.

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