Crypto Treasury Companies Pose a Similar Risk to the 2000s Dotcom Bust

The New Digital Gold Rush: How Crypto Treasury Companies Spiegel The Dotcom era

The explosive growth of crypto-treasure companies in 2025 shows a disturbing parable with the investment trusts of the 1920s and the Dotcom fever of 1995-2000. The proliferation of crypto treasury companies is related to the Dotcom era of the early 2000s, in which internet shares have the economy crash. While hundreds of listed companies are running to collect digital assets, market observers warn that history may repeat itself with potentially devastating consequences for investors.

The crypto treasury phenomenon reached a crescendo in 2025, with twenty -one, made by Softbank and Tether, launched through a Cantor Fitzgerald Spac with $ 685 million in capital to buy Bitcoin. Nakamoto, founded by David Bailey of Bitcoin Magazine, merged with a listed medical company, which collected $ 710 million to buy Bitcoin. These companies follow the PlayBook founded by strategy (formerly Micro Strategy), which BTC accumulation started in 2020 and now has more than 580,000 Bitcoin worth $ 60 billion, but is traded against a market capitalization of more than $ 100 billion.

Mechanics of a modern bubble

The parallels with the Dotcom era are striking. A combination of rapidly rising stock prices in the quaternary sector of the economy and the confidence that the companies would change future profits created an environment in which many investors were willing to overlook traditional statistics, such as the price earnings ratio and basic confidence in technological progress, which leads to a bubble of the stock market. Between 1995 and 2000, the Nasdaq Composite Stock Market Index rose by 400%. Today’s crypto treasury companies show similar characteristics, with a lot of trade with substantial premiums for their net asset value (NAV) despite minimal operational companies or income flows.

Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATCOS), which are now good for more than $ 100 billion in digital assets, depend on a persistent share premium for net asset value (NAV). This premium creates a self -absorbed cycle: companies issue new shares at bloated prices, use the yield to buy more cryptocurrency, which theoretically increases the value per share, attract more investors and push the share price even higher.

Warning signals from veterans from the industry

Nic Carter, partner at Castle Island Ventures, compared this listed investment vehicles with GBTC, which had been traded on a premium for years. Turning that premium to a discount crashed into the 2022 collapses of important crypto companies and projects such as Terra/Luna, Three Arrows Capital, Voyager, Celsius, Blockfi and of course FTX. The structural vulnerability of this model becomes clear when investigating the interconnected risks.

“When hundreds of companies assume the same one-direct trade (to increase fairness, buy, repeat), it can become structurally fragile. A decline in one of these three variables (investor sentiment, crypto prices and liquidity of capital markets) can start to unravel,” the report said. This warning from Galaxy Digital Echos are concerns about systemic risk plots within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

The race to accumulate

The scope of the Treasury movement has become much further than Bitcoin. There are Crypto -Schat Chest Companies, such as Sharplink Gaming for Ether and Defi Development Corp. For Solana, and companies that bet on extremely new cryptocurrencies, such as the fitness company Interactive Strength, which buys the artificial intelligence Munt from Fetch.ai. This diversification in more and more speculative assets reflects the late stages of the Dotcom bubble when investors donated money in every company with a “.com” suffix.

James Butterfill, the head of research at Coinshares, a digital of assets-oriented investment firm, says Axios that this crypto-treasury theme could be the real Altcoin season in this cycle. Butterfill calls the situation a ‘liquidity shift’. A lot of money has been lying around, looking for work, part of it in a very meme -stock mood, he notes.

Leverage and systemic risk

A settlement in the DATCO trade could itself exert considerable downward pressure on the prices of digital assets. In the same way that the intake of Treasury companies served as a “persistent bid” for Bitcoin, would probably have the opposite effect by repayments driven by repayments.

Historical Echos and Market Psychology

The ultrasound of surplus: how crypto treasury companies reflect the dangerous precedents of the Dotcom era

The current increase in crypto treasury companies creates striking parallels with the Dotcom bubble that destroyed stock markets in the early 2000s. While the giants of companies racing to accumulate Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets, market observers warn that investors psychology has remained remarkably unchanged since the technology collapsed that has won around 80% of the stock market value a quarter of century ago.

Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATS) have emerged as a determining feature of the current Crypto cycle, so that capital is collected by stock sales and debts to feed enormous cryptocurrency scenery. Coingecko follows 120 settings with 1,510,408 BTC worth $ 165 billion, which represents 7.19% of Bitcoin’s total offer. This unprecedented business recording of digital assets has created a new class of listed vehicles that function more as livered crypto betting than traditional business companies.

The anatomy of a modern speculative mania

In 2025, these entities collected more than $ 15 billion in capital and surpassed the traditional venture financing in the crypto space. Strategy (formerly micro strategy) Only is 580,250 Bitcoins worth more than $ 64 billion, which transforms from a software company in some critics describes as a Bitcoin Fund -trade leverage on public markets.

The mechanics of this treasury plays systemic risks. DATS increases billions through public markets to crypto, act at net asset value (NAV) premiums during bull markets and adding leverage for profits – but turning down these to discounts, causing forced selling risk that the prices could crash. The growth model critically depends on continuing share premiums for NAV, driven by the assumption of constantly rising cryptocurrency prices.

Structural vulnerabilities and leverage risks

The parallels with investment activities from the 1920s are particularly worrying. Galaxy Digital warns that the Bitcoin Treasury Play “presents an interesting parallel with the Rush Investment Trusts of the 1920s, a reflexive loop and mass speculative pathology”, and noted that new trusts launched with a rate of one per day for the possible collapse.

DATCOS usually comes to the fore through innovative financing structures, including reverse mergers in Nasdaq-raised shells, so that private entities can quickly become public without traditional IPO supervision. Galaxy reports that ten or so companies are now pressing this trade a week, creating dangerous correlations, both at Treasury companies and with underlying cryptom markets.

The Ethereum Treasury sector is an example of the concentration risks. Only 11 companies that actively acquire Ethereum have collective 3,436,285 ETH worth $ 15.23 billion. Ethereum is confronted with a special vulnerability of 3.4% of his offer from DATS that has largely been acquired since March 2025, which drives a price increase of 95% from $ 2,170 to $ 4,240. In a serious unbound, analysts project ETH can fall to $ 2,500- $ 3,500 or lower.

The relaxed scenario

A settlement in the DATCO trade could exert considerable downward pressure on the prices of digital assets, because the outflows of repayments would reverse the “persistent bid” that created the intake of the treasury. The shares of different companies are already flirting to the NAV discounts, which means that some companies start to buy back shares with the help of digital assets reserves or operational cash.

The concentration of interests creates Cascade risks. Crypto Treasury companies must balance risk, debts and liquidity in order to survive market cycles, whereby care is determined which companies endure and which are confronted with forced sale. Companies must invest in offer -covered cryptocurrencies or digital assets with blue chip instead of altcoins that can lose up to 90% of their value between cycles.

Conclusion: the rhyme of history in digital markets

The crypto treasury phenomenon represents more than a speculative excess it embodies the continuous vulnerability of the market for narrative manias. Although institutional investments have been advertised as proof that crypto has been aged in a global activa class, the leverage, concentration and reflexive dynamics suggest differently.

Dats have accelerated the mainstream acceptance of crypto while making the seeds of their own undone, risking reinforced volatility and systemic shocks. Many crypto treasury companies are expected to fail or holds during the next recession, although some will survive by adopting disciplined strategies. Companies with operational companies that generate income are better positioned than pure treasury plays functioning as a listed adopted acquisition vehicles that depend on financing.

The lesson is clear to investors: when capital allocation is detached from fundamental value creation, when lever connections are in leverage, and when yesterday’s innovation becomes the current speculation vehicle, the result rarely differs from the historical precedent. The Crypto Treasury Boom can still be sustainable for selected disciplined operators, but for many others it is in danger of becoming the answer of the digital age to the Dotcom -Buste – a warning story of surplus that future investors will study with the same mixture of fascination and incredible.

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