Good Morning, Asia. A debate at BTC Asia in Hong Kong crystallized a hard question for public companies holding bitcoin: can a bitcoin treasury strategy reliably beat the price of BTC itself — or should investors simply buy a bitcoin ETF?
Matt Cole, CEO of Strive Asset Management, put it bluntly: “If you aren’t doing that, there’s no reason to do the strategies, just buy a Bitcoin ETF.” Onstage he argued the path to outperformance runs through financing — moving from convertibles to perpetual preferred equity to lock in leverage — and, crucially, scale. Cole said firms need roughly $1 billion of capital before financing costs fall low enough to support IPOs, teams and bigger corporate plays, citing MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor.
Cole also said only bitcoin’s fixed supply supports a levered treasury play over time, arguing that Ethereum and many other tokens behave more like equities with changing monetary policy.
By contrast, Andrew Webley of The Smarter Web Company urged a measured approach: smaller firms can raise capital nimbly, but public companies must publish treasury rules and clear risk disclosures so investors can judge dilution, yield trade‑offs and NAV impact. “If somebody can understand the risks, then in our opinion these things are the very best value opportunities in the whole world,” Webley said.
The choice for investors is clear: back aggressive, levered strategies that try to outperform BTC or opt for simpler, transparent approaches that track the asset. Panelists agreed bitcoin’s role on corporate balance sheets is growing as fiat loses purchasing power, but leverage and dilution raise material risks.
Market snapshot: Bitcoin was trading above $110,500 with signs of accumulation; ETH around $4,300.
Source: CoinDesk. Read the original coverage for full details.