In brief

• Corporate crypto treasuries scaled rapidly in 2025 as firms across sectors copied Strategy’s model, raising billions to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.
• Strategy, Forward Industries, BitMine, The Ether Machine and Metaplanet emerged as the year’s defining treasury players, using debt, equity, and preferred shares to fund large positions.
• Analysts told Decrypt that conviction and execution, not headline exposure, has separated durable treasury strategies from speculative balance-sheet risks as they head into 2026.

This year marked the first time the playbook of the top Bitcoin corporate holder, Strategy, was replicated at scale, with companies across sectors building major treasuries in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana through formal capital-raising pipelines.

As that playbook spread across sectors and geographies, five companies in particular helped shape how corporate treasuries approached crypto in 2025.

Here’s a closer look at the extent to which the biggest firms in the space went all-in this year.

Strategy (MSTR)

Michael Saylor's Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) bought its first Bitcoin in August 2020 when shares traded at $14.44. 

Five years later, the company holds 660,624 BTC as of December 15, valued at $62 billion, with its share price up 1,204%, according to Yahoo Finance data. This year, Strategy bought Bitcoin using a mix of debt and equity.

February: $2 billion bond sale

Strategy bought 20,365 BTC at $97,514 in February, funded through $2 billion in zero-coupon convertible bonds. The bonds don't pay interest but convert to stock at maturity in 2030.

Initially, the market reacted negatively, as Strategy's stock fell 2.37% on the announcement day, but it later recovered.

March: $1.92 billion during trade war

Strategy grabbed 22,048 BTC at $87,000 in March as President Donald Trump's trade war with China had rattled markets and knocked Bitcoin down from its highs.

The company raised $1.2 billion by selling stock and another $1.85 million through STRK, a new perpetual preferred stock product it introduced in January.

April: $1.42 billion stock sale

Strategy bought 15,355 BTC for $1.42 billion in April by selling 4 million shares. Nearly all the money, approximately 97%, came from stock sales rather than debt.

This approach works when Strategy's stock trades at a value above the value of its Bitcoin holdings. 

If MSTR's market cap is higher than its Bitcoin value, then the company can sell shares and buy more Bitcoin than those shares represent, thereby boosting the Bitcoin-per-share value for existing holders. 

But in November, Strategy's market cap fell below its Bitcoin holdings, making future stock sales dilutive rather than accretive.

July: $2.5 billion STRC launch

Strategy’s most significant raise came in July with the launch of STRC, a perpetual preferred stock paying monthly dividends that the company used to fund a 21,021 BTC purchase.

It marked the third preferred product Strategy introduced this year, following STRF and STRK, and the first time a Bitcoin treasury firm issued a monthly dividend-paying preferred share on a U.S. exchange.

The firm spent billions this year as part of its "21/21 Plan"—a three-year goal to raise $21 billion through equity and $21 billion through debt.

Joshua Chu, a lawyer, lecturer, and co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association, told Decrypt that the timing of this year’s crypto treasury plays raised red flags with many firms following Strategy’s playbook.

"Several listed companies piled into digital asset treasury strategies just as Bitcoin was at or near all-time highs," Chu said. “Many of the most aggressive proposals were of the same kind that Hong Kong's exchange had already rejected earlier in the year on listing-rule and prudential grounds."

Multiple struggling firms made “swing for the fences” allocations despite having “no general need” to hold crypto, given they had no intention of using it for actual projects, Chu said.

Forward Industries (FORD)

Forward Industries completed a pivot in September when the medical device accessories company became the world's largest Solana treasury.

The New York company raised $1.65 billion through a private placement backed by Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital, using almost all of it to buy 6,822,000 SOL at $232 per token.

Forward's stock rose 1.32% on the news, with the company immediately filing to raise an additional $4 billion through stock sales for "working capital, pursuit of its Solana token strategy, and the purchase of income-generating assets."

By November, Forward held 6,910,568 SOL, by far the most extensive Solana treasury among public companies such as SOL Strategies, DeFi Development Corp., and Upexi.

Jad Comair, CEO and founder of Melanion Capital, which was behind Europe's first private Bitcoin treasury model, told Decrypt that 2026 is likely to become a “altcoin treasury year.” 

With "the broader crypto universe" typically lagging Bitcoin, he said firms that buy BTC often "extend the playbook.”

BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR)

BitMine, led by Tom Lee, built the largest publicly traded Ethereum treasury by buying aggressively during market chaos.

In October, BitMine bought 203,826 ETH for $963 million during a post-tariff crypto selloff that wiped out $19 billion in leveraged positions and sent ETH down to $3,709.

As of December 15, the total ETH holdings of Bitmine stood at 3.8 million, worth over $12 billion, according to  StrategicETHReserve.xyz. BitMine's stock jumped 4.35% to $54 after the October purchase, though it had fallen from above $60 during the selloff.

The company ranks as the second-largest crypto treasury globally, behind only Strategy's Bitcoin holdings. It also holds $22 million in Bitcoin and $239 million in other investments, as of December 15, along with about $1 billion in cash.

Comair quipped that large-scale crypto treasury allocations are becoming structural rather than cyclical. 

"Companies moved from opportunistic buys to incorporating formal treasury policy," he said. "The combination of fair-value accounting, institutional-grade custody, and ETF liquidity rails means these allocations are no longer 'experiments.'"

Asked whether corporate treasuries will continue this trend in 2026, Comair said "board-level FOMO" will drive adoption. 

Once Bitcoin rebounds, "no CFO wants to be the one who ignored the cheapest balance-sheet trade of the cycle,” he said.

The Ether Machine (ETHM)

The Ether Machine raised $654 million in August when longtime Ethereum backer Jeffrey Berns invested 150,000 ETH and joined the board.

The company holds 495,362 ETH as of December 15, worth over $1.4 billion, making it the third-largest Ethereum treasury behind BitMine and SharpLink Gaming.

The Ether Machine was formed in June through a merger between The Ether Reserve and blank-check firm Dynamix Corporation. 

The company debuted on the Nasdaq in July and started trading under the ticker ETHM in August. Unlike passive holders, the firm stakes its ETH and uses decentralized finance strategies to generate yield.

Metaplanet

Tokyo Exchange-listed Metaplanet bought 5,419 BTC for $632.53 million in September at $116,724 per coin, through a $1.45 billion international share offering.

As of December 15, Metaplanet holds 30,823 BTC, valued at $2.7 billion, and ranks fourth behind Strategy, Marathon Digital, and Twenty One Capital, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.

This year, the company set an ambitious target to acquire an additional 100,000 BTC next year and 210,000 BTC by 2027, or roughly 1% of Bitcoin's total possible 21 million supply.

The company operated hotels and technology businesses until 2024, when it pivoted to focus on Bitcoin. The strategy earned it the nickname "Asia's MicroStrategy” for following Saylor’s Strategy playbook.

In the end

Comair noted the most common risk-management mistake this year came from companies that "broke their own narrative, or executed without conviction." 

The clearest missteps came from companies that “panicked” or reversed course, he said, calling out New York exchange-listed chipmaker Sequans, which bought Bitcoin, then sold it to pay off debts, revealing “no long-term view.”

"The biggest mistake of 2025 was not volatility, it was inconsistency," he noted. "Investors reward clarity and conviction. They punish hesitation."

“There is no general need for corporates with no concrete plans to deploy crypto in support of projects, products, or on-chain infrastructure to hold significant crypto right now,” Hong Kong Web3 Association’s Chu noted. 

“For these issuers, crypto is not a strategic input; it is a source of avoidable earnings volatility and correlated liquidity risk,” he said.

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