Beware the bubble in bitcoin treasury companies

Gold Coin Stack in Form of Bitcoin Symbol — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Digital currencies (cryptocurrencies) have moved from the outer fringes of investing into the mainstream in recent years. While it’s been a roller-coaster ride for investors, crypto is here to stay. Governments and regulators progressed from ignoring it to fighting it; now they are trying to jump on the bandwagon by allowing investors access through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). However, while bitcoin might not be in a bubble, some of the companies involved in it are.

Chief among these is the group of companies known as bitcoin treasury companies. These firms’ business models involve buying a load of bitcoins and holding them on their balance sheets in the hope that investors will be willing to value their shares at a premium to the value of the bitcoin. They would then promise to take advantage of this premium to issue more shares, which could be used to buy more bitcoin, in the hope that those who invested would see the bitcoin per share holdings increase.

Trouble ahead for bitcoin treasury companies

Incredibly, this model worked for a time, with some companies trading at twice (sometimes more) the value of their net crypto assets. However, because mainstream financial institutions now offer products such as ETFs, it has become much simpler for even cautious investors to buy crypto, so bitcoin treasury companies have become much less attractive. As a result, the valuations they can command have started to dwindle. Meanwhile, some bitcoin treasury companies have struggled to issue more shares, leaving their investors with a large amount of very expensive bitcoin.

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One such company is Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR). While Strategy has its own business software and intelligence business, most analysts believe that virtually all its value resides in its 640,000 bitcoin, the largest corporate holding in the world. The problem is that while this pile is worth around $73 billion at current prices, Strategy also has debts of $11 billion. Overall, this means that it trades at a 40% premium to the value of its bitcoin, using the industry’s preferred metric. In other words, those who invest in the company are paying $1.40 for every $1 worth of bitcoin that Strategy holds, a pretty poor deal, especially compared with holding bitcoin directly or through an ETF.

Despite the ongoing appreciation of bitcoin, Strategy’s share price is currently trading below both the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, and is significantly down from its peaks earlier this year. I would therefore suggest shorting Strategy at the current price of $305 at £5 per $1. At the same time, I suggest that you go long on bitcoin at the current price of $114,639 at £1.50 per $100. This means that as long as the price of bitcoin outperforms Strategy’s share price, you should make money. To limit your losses, I would cover your position in Strategy if its share price rises above $610.

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