🏦 Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury model cracks and Ethereum steps in

Michael Saylor built his empire on a radical idea: turn a corporate balance sheet into a Bitcoin sponge. For years, it worked. Strategy’s stock soared, investors paid a premium for shares, and Saylor became the icon of corporate conviction.

Now, that model is wobbling.

Strategy’s stock has plunged 15% this month, wiping out the premium it once enjoyed over its Bitcoin holdings. That premium was the lifeblood of Saylor’s playbook proof that Wall Street valued the wrapper more than just the BTC inside. Without it, investors are asking a hard question: why buy Strategy when you can buy a Bitcoin ETF instead?

⚠️ Where the cracks began

The trouble started when Saylor tried to raise fresh funds with preferred stock to buy more BTC. The sale flopped, raising just $47M, far below expectations. Days later, Strategy broke its own pledge not to issue common shares at low multiples, selling nearly 900,000 shares. Investors saw that as a breach of trust.

📉 Cracks across the model

Strategy isn’t alone. Capriole Investments estimates a third of public Bitcoin-holding companies now trade below the value of their BTC reserves. Smaller firms are even shakier as many rely on convertible notes with deadlines and interest costs.

Saylor still plans to swap all debt for preferred stock within four years. But most copycats can’t replicate that path, they don’t have his scale or name recognition.

🌐 Enter Ethereum treasuries

While the Bitcoin treasury model strains under ETF competition, Ethereum is quietly becoming the corporate hedge. Firms have already committed more than $19B to ETH treasuries, borrowing Saylor’s blueprint but with extra advantages.

ETH isn’t just a balance-sheet bet. It’s productive: companies can stake it for 3–5% yield, turning reserves into income. Thanks to EIP-1559, supply can even shrink during periods of high activity, a built-in deflationary pitch that appeals to CFOs.

And unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is the plumbing of digital finance powering stablecoins, DeFi markets, and tokenized assets. That utility makes ETH harder to dismiss as just “digital gold.”

Add in the surge of spot ETH ETFs, now pulling in billions, and the picture gets clearer: Wall Street is giving Ethereum the same seal of approval it once gave Bitcoin.

👉 Takeaway: Saylor’s playbook made corporate Bitcoin treasuries a movement. But with premiums gone and ETFs stealing the spotlight, the model looks less bulletproof.

Ethereum treasuries, offering yield, utility, and regulatory clarity, are quickly stepping into the void. The era of corporate crypto balance sheets isn’t ending, it’s evolving, and ETH is leading the next chapter.

1/ SOL disconnects from BTC
While Bitcoin slid lower, Solana briefly rallied past $215, its highest since February. The decoupling signals traders are betting on ecosystem growth, not just market beta.

2/ DeFi liquidity at yearly highs

Total value locked (TVL) on Solana hit $11.73B, topping its January peak. That’s a sign of sticky deposits, not just price action.

3/ Protocols are scaling fast
In the past month, most Solana DeFi apps saw 15%+ TVL growth. Leaders:

• Drift (perps)

• Wormhole (bridges)

• Pyth Network (oracles)

• Jupiter (DEX + new lending vaults)

4/ Wrapped BTC joins the mix

• Kamino Lend now holds $300M in wrapped BTC (~10% of its liquidity).

• Lombard’s LBTC expanded onto Solana, the first time it’s left EVM chains. A small step, but key for BTC-based DeFi.

5/ Retail funnel: Solana’s Seeker phone

Launching September, the Seeker phone will ship with DeFi incentives: higher yields, app perks, and early access. With 150K pre-orders, it could onboard new retail users into Solana DeFi.

• Sharps Technology launches Solana treasury with $400M raise that could reach $1B

• Elon Musk moves to dismiss SEC lawsuit over Twitter stake

• CFTC allows American traders to access non-U.S. crypto exchanges

• 21Shares files with SEC for SEI ETF featuring potential staking option

• ARK Invest tops $300M in BitMine shares with latest $15M buy

• Major stock jumps around crypto moves raise suspicions of insider activity

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