Digital asset treasuries or ICO playbook institutionalized

When Michael Saylor announced in 2020 that MicroStrategy (now Strategy) was converting part of its balance sheet into Bitcoin (BTC), it felt like a sober milestone. For the first time, a publicly traded company was treating Bitcoin as a reserve asset rather than a speculative toy — digital gold in corporate form. Saifedean Ammous’ Bitcoin Standard had finally found a disciple in the world of listed equities. 

It was the beginning of the corporate crypto treasury era. Within five years, more than 150 public companies had followed, together holding close to a million BTC. Today, digital asset treasury companies (DATCOs) have turned that one move into an industry category of their own. Publicly listed players such as Strategy, Metaplanet, and SharpLink Gaming now hold more than $100 billion in crypto. Together, treasury companies control about 791,000 BTC and 1.3 million Ethereum (ETH) — nearly 4% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply and just over 1% of Ethereum’s. 

Cryptocurrencies are no longer just for retail investors or hedge funds; they have become a line item in quarterly reports. Yet what started as a hedge against inflation has mutated. Treasuries now serve less as risk management and more as staged performances. The logic is increasingly familiar — because we have seen it before, in the ICO boom.

The new hype cycle: ICO mechanics reborn

By 2017, initial coin offerings had evolved from J.R. Willett’s Mastercoin experiment in 2013 and Ethereum’s presale in 2014 into a full-blown mania, reshaping crypto’s image almost overnight. Projects like Basic Attention Token raised $35 million in about 30 seconds. Golem collected $8.6 million in 29 minutes. Bancor raised $153 million in just three hours. Status raised tens of millions while clogging the Ethereum network. 

The failures were just as spectacular. Pincoin/iFan, a Vietnamese Ponzi scheme, extracted around $660 million from 32,000 investors before vanishing. PlexCoin promised 1,354% returns and was swiftly halted by the SEC. Centra claimed Visa and MasterCard partnerships that never existed. BitConnect became infamous for its collapse, wiping out thousands of investors. These sales demonstrated how quickly capital could be mobilized, often with little more than a promise and a single-page PDF they called White Paper. 

Some ICOs did issue detailed whitepapers, of course, but the vast majority of the so-called “projects” leveraged the buying power of an avid community with empty promises of “new big thing” circulating via Twitter or BitcoinTalk forums. It was enough to create the sense of inevitability. The statistics tell the story: around 81% of ICOs turned out to be scams or failed outright within a year, nearly 25% collapsed within two, and only about 8% ever made it onto exchanges. 

The mechanics were clear: ICOs raised capital quickly, used announcements to generate headlines, and attracted new waves of funding on the back of inflated valuations. That loop worked brilliantly until it didn’t. And when confidence finally broke, the same mechanics that had created a boom acted as the catalyst for the crash that became the 2018 crypto winter.

Fast forward to 2025, and the same dynamics have returned, this time in the hands of public companies. Consider CEA Industries, a Canadian vape-equipment firm. In July 2025, it announced plans to raise up to $1.25 billion to build the world’s largest publicly traded Binance Coin (BNB) treasury. Its stock surged by more than 800% in a single day. The business model hadn’t changed, but the narrative did — and the narrative was enough.

Metaplanet, listed in Tokyo, is another example of a company that embraced Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset and positioned itself as “Asia’s MicroStrategy.” The stock performance became tied less to its core operations and more to its crypto identity. And the most theatrical case: Trump Media & Technology Group, or TMT, the parent company of Truth Social. In July 2025, it was revealed that two-thirds of its liquid assets, about $2 billion, were being converted into Bitcoin and related securities. In August, it announced a $6.4 billion partnership with Crypto.com and Yorkville Advisors Global, including $1 billion worth of Cronos (CRO) tokens, $220 million in warrants, $200 million in cash, and a $5 billion equity line of credit. The structure itself became the story.

On paper, these were treasury decisions, but in practice, they looked like capital formation carefully planned to create momentum — the same circular logic of the ICO boom, but now executed by companies with auditors, tickers, and mainstream visibility.

From balance sheets to headlines

The resemblance to ICOs is not only in mechanics but also in communications. ICOs leaned on one-pagers, Twitter threads, and forum buzz to create momentum. DATCOs rely on press releases, executive interviews, and television soundbites. The intent is similar: to present financial maneuvers as visionary strategy and let media amplification reinforce the narrative. 

For Michael Saylor, the purpose was straightforward. MicroStrategy’s move was defensive, aimed at preserving shareholder value in an inflationary environment by converting cash into Bitcoin. For companies like CEA Industries or TMTG, the purpose operates on another level. Each treasury announcement is staged not only as a capital decision but as a communications event. The announcement itself helps draw investor attention, influence sentiment, and sustain valuations that trade above the company’s net asset value. 

Those premiums are not created by PR alone: investors weigh financial tools such as At-the-Market programs (ATMs), Private Investments in Public Equity (PIPEs), and credit lines, but communications shape the expectations that allow premiums to persist. Once shares trade above NAV, companies can raise new capital on favorable terms, recycle it into further crypto purchases, and then announce those additions in turn. It is a self-reinforcing loop in which financial engineering and communications work together: one fuels the balance sheet, the other maintains the story that keeps the cycle running.

Systemic risks: From psychology to mechanization

The ICO boom became the catalyst for the 2018 bear market. Scams and failures destroyed trust, liquidity evaporated, and a two-year winter followed. DATCOs carry the same potential, but on a greater scale. In 2018, the unwinding was driven largely by human psychology. Support levels broke, investors lost faith, and selling accelerated. 

Today, the structure of markets has changed. Technical analysis still reflects collective psychology, but much of institutional trading is now algorithmic. Automated systems execute once thresholds are breached, turning hesitation into rapid cascades. Stop-losses feed margin calls, margin calls feed liquidation engines, and the cycle compresses weeks of fear into minutes. The industry has proved many times that millions can disappear in seconds. A corporate treasury holding billions cannot unwind quietly. If a company like TMTG or Metaplanet is forced to sell in a falling market, algorithms will amplify the move. Retail investors do not have the firepower to absorb those flows, and institutions typically step back until the selling is exhausted. The result is a vacuum, a freefall until forced liquidation runs its course.

This is how DATCOs, meant to project credibility by borrowing Bitcoin’s mature stats, can instead undermine the industry’s credibility when panic sets in.

Sound money turned into spectacle money

Some DATCOs reflect conviction. Strategy has treated Bitcoin not as a publicity tool but as a core treasury asset, accumulating more than 200,000 BTC through debt issuance and steady purchases. Its approach has been consistent: borrow in fiat, buy Bitcoin, and hold through cycles. 

The majority, however, leans into spectacle. Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. and CEA Industries have treated treasuries as a stage, where the act of announcing the reserve creates more value than the reserve itself. The parallel to ICOs is striking. A handful of projects like EOS and Tezos left a mark, but the majority collapsed. In the same way, corporate treasuries may leave a few durable players and a trail of PR stunts that vanish when the cycle turns.

Corporate treasuries began as hedges and quickly became press releases. Now they serve as brand identities. They can generate credibility when backed by conviction, or short-term attention when staged as spectacle. But theater carries consequences. In 2017, ICOs acted as the catalyst for the crypto winter of 2018. In 2025, treasuries risk playing the same role – only now the stage is bigger, the audience includes institutional investors, and the credibility of the industry itself is on the line.