Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATCos) have emerged as a dominant narrative within the crypto industry since 2025. Currently, 208 entities hold crypto assets worth over $184 billion, with the majority holding Bitcoin as the reserve asset.
But all DATCos are not the same. Each has its own strategy for holding crypto or actively deploying it for revenue generation. The ‘Active Treasury’ model has proved to be more sustainable and profitable in the long run compared to passive or buy-and-hold strategies.
What are ‘Active Treasury’ Models
‘Active Treasury’ models productively deploy capital rather than holding it as a speculative investment on company balance sheets. DATCos leverage digital assets in their treasuries for staking, validator operations, and ecosystem development to generate revenue.
These active crypto treasury companies can earn on-chain yield while strengthening the underlying network infrastructure by allocating treasury assets into blockchain-based protocols. Besides diversifying exposure to digital assets through traditional mechanisms such as brokerages and stock exchanges, active treasury models help investors earn from revenue-generating businesses.
Active treasuries have created a unique feedback loop: as treasuries participate in staking, validating, or providing liquidity, they earn yield in exchange for strengthening the crypto ecosystem. In addition to building resilience and enhancing scalability, active DATCos distribute investor returns in a transparent and risk-free manner.
Regulators often prefer public companies with an active treasury model because of their easily auditable on-chain operations and traceable yield distribution. Government compliance bodies can easily track each transaction and verify validator reward allocations, thereby enabling regulated participation in the digital asset space.
Evidently, active treasury models have an edge over passive ones.
Active vs. Passive Treasury Models
In 2020, Michael Saylor pioneered the ‘buy-and-hold’ DATCo model by becoming one of the first publicly traded companies to convert its cash reserves into bitcoin. Saylor’s company, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), was a Pure Play DATCo that issued debt to accumulate BTC through an equity-based fundraising methodology.
However, Pure Play DATCos, especially smaller companies, that follow a passive treasury model, are riskier. Since passive treasuries depend on a consistent equity premium relative to net asset value (NAV), the model breaks down if the premium collapses or inverts to a discount.
In these situations, passive treasury companies have to buy back stock to arbitrage the discount using their asset reserves or operational cash. If redemptions and buybacks become the norm during bear-market conditions, with reduced liquidity and negative investor sentiment, it may lead to a large-scale unwinding of DATCos.
However, active treasury companies don’t depend on speculative price action of crypto assets to generate revenue. Even in flat market conditions, they generate yield through staking, mining, transaction validations, and running the crypto ecosystem.
Therefore, the time of passive exposure to crypto on balance sheets is coming to an end. DATCos with an active treasury model are increasingly becoming the new productive capital engine of the crypto industry. One such popular DATCo leveraging an active crypto treasury model is BTCS SA.
BTCS SA: A Case Study of an Active Treasury Model
BTCS SA, Europe’s first publicly listed DATCo, follows an active treasury model that leverages bitcoin as the anchor asset on its balance sheet while deploying capital into yield-generating activities. The company generates recurring revenue by participating in blockchain infrastructure operations, including staking and running validator nodes for layer-1 blockchains such as CoreDAO and ZIGChain.
As an active treasury with a strategic allocation strategy, BTCS has a declared treasury target of 60% bitcoin, along with yield-bearing assets such as tokenized RWAs. It operates without leverage, maintains adequate liquidity buffers, and employs risk-managed custody controls, providing regulated exposure to the crypto industry.
BTCS has adopted a disciplined, rules-based framework, moving from a passive treasury model to an active one. It uses institutional-grade, customized solutions, such as cash-secured options and regulated derivatives, to generate predictable income streams. To this end, BTCS has partnered with the QCP Group, a leading digital asset partner, and BitGo, a digital asset infrastructure company.
Unlike most buy-and-hold passive crypto treasury strategies, BTCS ensures its proceeds don’t sit idle in the treasury. With staking rewards creating steady revenue streams while strengthening underlying networks, the active treasury model provides a sustainable avenue for publicly listed companies.
BTCS’s innovation lies in generating long-term shareholder value through strategic acquisition and exposure to digital assets such as bitcoin, coupled with revenue from infrastructure operations. Indeed, the future of DATCos lies in productive deployment, not in passive storage of crypto assets.
Publicly traded companies with active treasuries, like BTCS, are not solely focused on revenue and rewards. In fact, they’re the key drivers of the crypto ecosystem, directly contributing to its security and stability.
In 2025, crypto holdings of DATCos grew by 140%, with almost 80% holding bitcoin as their primary treasury asset. If DATCos have to become a sustainable industry vertical in 2026 and beyond, then they must forego passive treasuries in favor of active ones. Companies like BTCS SA demonstrate why active crypto treasuries are critical for ensuring DATCos don’t become a narrative fad.
