Firms holding (or planning to hold) significant amounts of bitcoin on their balance sheets have become one of the leading public market narratives of 2025. Despite investors having several direct avenues to get BTC exposure (ETFs, spot BTC, wrapped BTC, futures contracts), many are still opting to gain exposure through purchasing shares of “bitcoin treasury companies” trading at a significant premium to their bitcoin net asset values (NAVs).

This premium is the difference between a company’s stock price and the per-share value of its BTC holdings. For example, if a company holds $100 million worth of BTC and has 10 million shares outstanding, its BTC NAV per share is $10. If the stock trades at $17.50, it’s trading at a 75% premium. In this context, the mNAV (short for multiple of Net Asset Value) reflects how many times above bitcoin NAV the equity is trading. The premium is simply mNAV minus 1, expressed as a percentage.

The average investor may wonder how such a company could be worth substantially more than the sum of its parts.

Leverage and Capital Access

Perhaps the most important reason bitcoin treasury companies trade at a premium to their underlying BTC holdings is because of their access to leverage through public capital markets. These firms can raise debt and equity to accumulate additional BTC. Essentially, they serve as high-beta BTC proxies, amplifying the asset’s sensitivity to market movements.

The most powerful and frequently used play in this playbook is the at-the-market (ATM) equity issuance program. This allows a company to issue shares incrementally at prevailing prices with minimal market disruption. When a stock is trading at a premium to BTC NAV, each dollar raised through an ATM program buys more BTC per share than it dilutes. This creates a BTC-per-share accretive loop that amplifies exposure.

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is the best case study for this, well … strategy. Since 2020, the firm has raised billions through convertible note offerings and secondary equity sales. Strategy held 597,325 BTC (~2.84% of the currency’s supply) as of June 30.

The vehicles to finance these purchases are available only to public companies and allow them to accumulate more BTC. Not only does this multiply BTC exposure, but it also generates a compounding narrative. Each successful capital raise and BTC purchase reinforces investor belief in the model. Therefore, investors buying $MSTR aren’t just buying BTC. They’re buying access to the ability to buy even more BTC in the future.

How Large Are These Premiums?

Below is a comparison of select bitcoin treasury companies. Strategy is the largest corporate bitcoin holder in the world, the most visible such entity, and the one with the longest track record. Metaplanet is the most aggressive accumulator and, as discussed below, the most transparent of the bunch. Semler Scientific was relatively early to the trend, initiating its bitcoin purchases last year. And The Blockchain Group, based in France, shows how the trend is expanding beyond U.S. companies.

Select Bitcoin Treasury Companies’ Premiums to NAV (as of June 30; assumes $107K BTC price):

While Strategy trades at a relatively modest ~75% premium to BTC NAV, smaller firms like The Blockchain Group (217%) and Metaplanet (384%) are trading at much higher premiums. These valuations show us that the market is pricing in much more than the growth potential of the underlying BTC. Companies are being valued according to a mix of capital market access, speculative upside, and narrative.

Bitcoin Yield: The KPI Behind the Premium

One of the most important key performance indicators driving equity premium for these companies is known as “bitcoin yield.” This metric effectively captures the growth in BTC per diluted share over certain timeframes. It tracks how effectively the company can use equity raises and capital markets access to grow BTC holdings without excessive dilution. Among the players, Metaplanet stands out for its transparency. The company publishes a live bitcoin dashboard, detailing its BTC holdings, BTC per share, and BTC yield in real time.

Source: Metaplanet Analytics (https://metaplanet.jp/en/analytics)

Notably, Metaplanet publishes proof of reserves, a practice absent among some peers. Strategy, for example, has not adopted any kind of on-chain verification framework for proving BTC holdings. At the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor explicitly argued against publishing proof of reserves, calling the practice a “bad idea” due to security risks. “It actually dilutes the security of the issuer, the custodians, the exchanges, and the investors,” Saylor said. This claim is debatable. On-chain proof of reserves requires publishing public keys or addresses, not private keys or signing data. Because Bitcoin’s security model is built on the principle that public keys can be safely shared without compromising custody, revealing a wallet address does not inherently weaken its security – this is a feature of the network. On-chain proof of reserves gives investors a direct way to verify that a company’s reported BTC holdings exist.

What Happens if the Premium Collapses?

The elevated valuations of Bitcoin treasury companies have, so far, persisted in a bullish environment of rising BTC prices and strong retail interest. No public BTC treasury company has ever traded below its NAV for a sustained period. The model works only as long as the premium remains. As Matthew Sigel of VanEck notes: “Once you are trading at NAV, shareholder dilution is no longer strategic. It’s extractive.” This observation cuts to the core of the model’s vulnerability. ATM equity issuance programs (the capital engine that powers these companies) rely fundamentally on the stock trading at a premium. When a stock is valued above the per-share BTC it represents, each dollar raised through equity issuance results in accretive BTC per share growth. But once a stock price falls to levels at or near NAV, that equation reverses: equity issuance dilutes shareholder exposure to BTC rather than enhancing it. The model depends on a self-reinforcing loop:

1. Premium enables capital raises
2. Capital raises fund BTC accumulation
3. BTC accumulation strengthens the narrative
4. The narrative supports the premium

If the premium disappears, the cycle unwinds. Capital becomes more expensive, BTC purchases slow, and the narrative weakens. For now, bitcoin treasury companies continue to enjoy capital market access and investor enthusiasm. The path forward will depend on financial discipline, transparency, and the ability to grow BTC per share… not just stack more BTC. The optionality that has made these equities so attractive in a bull market could quickly become a liability in a bearish one.

Disclaimer:

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