Only four of the twenty largest crypto treasury companies currently trade above the value of their digital asset holdings, according to a September 24 research report DWF Ventures published on X. Among the laggards is Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin (BTC), whose market-value-to-net-asset-value multiple was measured at 0.97x — below par.

Digital asset treasuries (DATs) are listed companies built around buying and holding crypto. Their core valuation metric, mNAV, compares a firm's market capitalization with the market value of the tokens on its balance sheet. A reading below 1.0x means the stock changes hands at a discount to the assets behind it; on paper, equity buyers are acquiring the underlying tokens more cheaply — provided the gap ever closes. The inverse also defined the model: while a treasury traded above asset value, issuing new shares added tokens per share with each raise — the mechanic that made a sustained premium central to the DAT format rather than a cosmetic bonus.

Using balance-sheet data as of September 21, DWF's ranking places Bit Digital first at 1.49x, followed by Strive at 1.21x, Hyperliquid Strategies at 1.17x and BitMine at 1.02x. Strategy sits at 0.97x on DWF's count, while SovereignAI anchors the table at 0.22x. The firm noted that these figures exclude debt and preferred stock, meaning leverage-adjusted discounts run deeper still. Sixteen of the twenty largest names have already slipped under water.

The full report was published on X: https://x.com/DWFVentures/status/2103108868071190610

A Shrinking Access Premium

DWF traces the discounts to a shrinking access premium. Institutions once paid extra for DAT shares because regulated funds struggled to own spot crypto directly, making a listed treasury wrapper the only compliant route to exposure. That door has opened: institutional buyers can now choose from exchange-traded funds, regulated private funds and crypto wallet and custody infrastructure that allows direct deployment — an option that did not previously exist.

DWF also points to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposal to accelerate the ETF listing process by more than 75%, which multiplied the menu of compliant vehicles and stripped scarcity value from the treasury-stock format. The market, in DWF's assessment, is repricing DAT equity down toward asset value.

A Catch-Up Trade With a Shelf Life

Performance data in the same report explains why the discount has proven durable. Since inception, DWF found, investors were mostly better off simply holding the token: the handful of DATs that beat their underlying assets did so by margins too thin to justify the added equity risk, and buyers seeking leveraged or directional exposure could already obtain it through regulated contract trading products rather than a treasury proxy.

Shorter windows tell a different story. Since July, treasury shares have outrun their tokens by 15% to 40%, and mNAV ratios have climbed from lows of 0.5x to 0.8x into a range between 0.7x and 1.0x. The mechanism is largely mechanical: when the multiple sits near its lows, a modest token recovery is amplified at the equity level as the discount compresses, making the rally a catch-up trade rather than alpha.

Two examples stand out. Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR), which holds Hyperliquid (HYPE), gained 31% more than its token over the span, while Cypherpunk Technologies (CYPH), the Zcash (ZEC) treasury, outperformed ZEC by 38%. Crucially, tokens per share barely moved during the run, which leads DWF to read the outperformance as sentiment — a wave closer to trading-floor FOMO than to balance-sheet improvement, and one with a shelf life of roughly three months before the token reasserts itself as the better hold.

Capital Structure Becomes the Valuation Driver

Looking ahead, DWF expects boards and capital structures to play a growing role in how DATs are valued. Its case study is Strategy: the firm ranks debt holders first and carries steady preferred dividend obligations, and the report warns those payments could eventually force Bitcoin sales that dilute common shareholders. Once confidence cracks, DWF argues, Strategy's mNAV could tip into a downward spiral — the same premium mechanism working in reverse.\nIn its own read of the official post, Coinotag's editorial desk frames the report as marking the end of the DAT premium era: with ETFs, private funds and custody making direct exposure cheap, a listed wrapper no longer earns scarcity value — a repricing that echoes the DeFi 2.0 debate over whether on-balance-sheet crypto treasuries add or destroy value. What remains, in this view, is capital-structure engineering: dividend obligations, debt priority and dilution risk now drive the multiple, which is why Strategy's 0.97x reading on the largest corporate BTC stash carries more signal than Bit Digital's 1.49x at the top of the table. Expect mNAV dispersion, not convergence, as boards diverge. For readers tracking the sector, the datapoints to watch in future updates are where Strategy's mNAV sits relative to the 1.0x line, whether the group's ratios hold the 0.7x-to-1.0x band DWF identifies, and whether any treasury discloses token sales tied to dividend or debt service.