The corporate treasury trade that helped drive Bitcoin's rally through 2025 has all but stalled. Publicly listed companies added only 5,900 BTC to their balance sheets over the past three months, according to data cited in the brief, a fraction of the more than 159,000 BTC they accumulated in the second quarter of the year alone. The slowdown represents roughly 0.03% of Bitcoin's circulating supply, a marked contrast to a period when such firms were absorbing entire quarters of new mining output in single transactions.
The scale of the retreat is stark when set against Strategy's record purchase in autumn 2024, when the company bought 21,021 BTC in a single tranche. By the end of the second quarter of 2025, 125 listed companies collectively held 847,000 BTC. That figure has since crossed one million BTC, but the pace of new accumulation has narrowed to about one-seventh of the roughly 40,500 BTC miners produce each quarter, down from a period when corporate buyers were absorbing multiples of that new supply.
mNAV compression changes the calculus
The mechanism behind the boom was straightforward: companies traded at a premium to the net asset value of their Bitcoin holdings, known as mNAV, allowing them to issue shares or debt to buy more coins accretively. Strategy's mNAV multiple exceeded 3x reserve value at the end of 2024. As that premium has fallen below 1 for many treasury companies, the arithmetic that once rewarded aggressive accumulation now punishes it.
Strategy itself remains the largest corporate holder by a wide margin, with more than 800,000 BTC on its balance sheet. To manage financing without diluting shareholders at unfavourable prices, the company has issued a series of preferred share classes, STRK, STRF, STRD and STRC, as an alternative route to raising capital. Not every company has stayed the course. Sequans Communications sold 970 BTC to repay debt, an example of the pressure some smaller treasury firms face as the premium that justified their strategy narrows.
MSCI review adds to the pressure
Compounding the slowdown is a consultation opened by index provider MSCI on excluding companies whose digital assets exceed half of their balance sheet. JPMorgan estimates that a Strategy exclusion alone could trigger $2.8 billion in passive outflows, with total outflows reaching up to $8.8 billion should other index providers follow MSCI's lead. For companies whose inclusion in major indices underpins demand from passive funds, the prospect of exclusion is a direct threat to the valuation premium the treasury strategy depends on.
Demand for Bitcoin has not disappeared, but it has shifted. Spot ETFs, with BlackRock's IBIT holding the largest share among US funds, now account for a greater proportion of flows. Unlike the steady, leveraged accumulation once practised by treasury companies, ETF flows tend to track prevailing market sentiment rather than provide a consistent bid. Listed companies still hold over one million BTC without having liquidated their positions, and convertible bond maturities stretching from 2027 to 2032 mean many of these firms retain years before refinancing pressure forces a reckoning. For now, though, the era of corporate treasuries as a dominant marginal buyer of Bitcoin appears to have paused.
