Bitcoin treasury companies

What they are

A Bitcoin treasury company is a listed company that holds bitcoin as a reserve asset. Some hold a little alongside a normal business (Tesla, Block, Coinbase). Miners such as MARA keep part of what they mine. A few, led by Strategy and Metaplanet, make buying bitcoin their main strategy and fund it by selling shares, preferred stock and convertible debt.

Why companies do it

• As a long-term reserve asset instead of cash that loses purchasing power to inflation.
• To give stock-market investors a way to get bitcoin exposure through a company they can buy in a normal brokerage or retirement account.
• When the shares trade above the value of the bitcoin behind them, selling new shares can buy more bitcoin per share than existed before (see mNAV below).

Major holders, from primary sources

Each figure is from the company’s latest SEC filing (10-Q, 10-K or 8-K) or official exchange disclosure we could verify. Dates differ, so don’t add them up as a single snapshot.

Further reading: bitcointreasuries.net tracks many more companies. It is an aggregator, so we don’t use it as the source for any figure here.

Risks

• Leverage and convertible debt. Debt and preferred dividends must be paid whatever bitcoin does. A long price fall can force a sale at the worst time.
• Premium to NAV. Shares can trade well above or below the value of the bitcoin behind them. A premium can shrink quickly, and investors who paid it lose even if bitcoin is flat.
• Dilution. Funding purchases with new shares and convertibles grows the share count, so each share owns a slice of a bigger pile, not necessarily more bitcoin.
• Concentration. One asset, one management team, one jurisdiction. Bitcoin pledged as collateral or lent out (MARA reports both) carries counterparty risk.
• You don’t hold the keys. A share is a claim on a company, behind its creditors. It is not bitcoin you control.

The metrics: BTC per share, BTC Yield, BTC Gain and mNAV

Treasury companies report their own key performance indicators. These are not GAAP measures. The definitions below are paraphrased from Strategy’s 10-Q for Q2 2026 and Metaplanet’s Oct 5, 2026 disclosure; other companies may define them differently.

• Bitcoin per share (BPS, in sats). Gross bitcoin held ÷ Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding, expressed in satoshis (1 sat = 0.00000001 BTC). Strategy’s diluted count assumes all convertible notes and convertible preferred convert and all options and stock units settle, and it is not calculated using the treasury method.
• BTC Yield. The percentage change in BPS from the start to the end of a period.
• BTC Gain. Bitcoin held at the start of the period × the BTC Yield. It is a hypothetical number of bitcoin, not bitcoin earned. BTC $ Gain multiplies that by the bitcoin price.
• mNAV. Metaplanet defines it as enterprise value ÷ the market value of its bitcoin holdings. Above 1 means the market values the company at more than its bitcoin; below 1, less.

Strategy’s own filing warns that these KPIs “are not, and should not be understood as, financial performance, valuation or liquidity measures”, that BTC Yield “is not equivalent to ‘yield’ in the traditional financial context”, and that bitcoin bought with debt or preferred stock “may not accrete to common stockholders” because those claims rank senior.

How these metrics can mislead

• Basic vs fully diluted shares. Leaving out convertibles, options or convertible preferreds shrinks the denominator and inflates BPS and BTC Yield.
• Ignoring senior claims. BPS counts gross bitcoin. Debt and preferred stock are paid before common shareholders, so bitcoin bought with them can raise BPS while common holders own less net of claims. Strategy’s filing says the KPIs may overstate or understate bitcoin after senior claims.
• Excluding liabilities. Interest, preferred dividends and other obligations don’t appear in BPS at all.
• Issuing at a premium. Selling stock above mNAV 1 raises BPS, but only while the premium lasts. At a discount the same move lowers it, as the example shows.
• Timing the window. Measuring right after a big raise, or just before a conversion adds shares, can flatter a period.
• Cherry-picked periods. Quoting the best quarter or year-to-date figure hides weaker stretches.
• Non-GAAP labels. Words like “yield” and “gain” sound like income or profit. Here they measure neither, and BTC $ Gain can be positive while the company books fair-value losses.

Questions to ask before trusting a headline number

• What is the source: an SEC filing or exchange disclosure, or a press release or social post?
• What is the as-of date, and has the share count changed since?
• Is BTC per share on basic or fully diluted shares? What is included in the dilution?
• How much debt and preferred stock rank ahead of common shareholders, and when is it due?
• Is any of the bitcoin lent, pledged or held by a third party?
• Is mNAV based on market cap or enterprise value? What happens to the strategy if it falls below 1?
• Which period is the metric measured over, and why that one?
• Does the company itself say the metric is not a performance measure?