VanEck Crypto Guru Warns Bitcoin Treasury Companies: Tighten Up or Risk Shareholder Wrath!

Matthew Sigel Sounds the Alarm on Capital Management Practices

Hold onto your hats, crypto fans! Matthew Sigel, the mastermind behind VanEck's digital assets research, is dropping some serious truth bombs on companies hoarding Bitcoin in their treasuries. In a fiery X post on June 16, Sigel didn't mince words, warning these companies to get their capital management act together as their stocks creep up on net asset value (NAV). And if they don't? Shareholders might just feel the burn.

So, what's the big deal about NAV? It's basically the total value of a company's Bitcoin stash divided by the number of shares out there. It's like a secret code that tells investors how much Bitcoin is backing each share. When stocks are flying high above NAV, companies can issue new shares and snap up more Bitcoin, making each share even more valuable. But when stocks are hanging out at or near NAV? New share issuance can be a real buzzkill, diluting shareholders' stake in the company's precious Bitcoin.

Now, here's the kicker: no public BTC treasury company has been stuck in the dumps below NAV for long. But guess what? At least one of them is now flirting with that danger zone. As some of these companies are busy raising cash through massive at-the-market (ATM) programs to gobble up more BTC, a new threat is looming on the horizon...

Sigel's not one to sit back and watch the chaos unfold. He's got some hardcore advice for these companies to protect their value if that gap between stock price and NAV keeps closing. First up? Slam the brakes on those at-the-market stock issuances when the stock trades below 0.95 times NAV for ten or more days straight. Next, prioritize buybacks when Bitcoin's on the rise but the stock price is lagging behind. And if the discount keeps hanging around? Time for a strategic review, stat!

But wait, there's more! Sigel's also calling out executive compensation, saying it should be all about growing that NAV per share, not just hoarding more Bitcoin or pumping up the share count. "Once you're trading at NAV, shareholder dilution is no longer a smart move. It's straight-up robbery," he warns.

This wake-up call comes at a time when Bitcoin treasury strategies are blowing up faster than a crypto bull market. A June 2025 report from Standard Chartered spills the beans that a whopping 61 public companies are now sitting on 673,897 BTC, which is 3.2% of Bitcoin's total supply. And get this: 58 of those companies are still trading above their NAV, a metric they call mNAV, showing that investors are still all in on this strategy.

But what the heck is mNAV, you ask? It's a fancy way of measuring a company's market value divided by its Bitcoin NAV. If mNAV is above 1.0, it means investors are shelling out a premium to get their hands on some equity-based Bitcoin action. But if it's below 1.0? That's a sign that the company's shares are trading below the value of their Bitcoin stash.

And who's the big cheese in the corporate Bitcoin world? None other than Strategy, holding a jaw-dropping 582,000 Bitcoin. In June, their mNAV was a sizzling 1.91. These guys have been on a tear, adding 74,000 Bitcoin in just two months and issuing $250 million in preferred stock to keep the party going.

But it's not all rainbows and unicorns. Two companies are feeling the heat: Semler Scientific and Trump Media & Technology Group. Their equity premiums to NAV are in the red, at -10% and -16% respectively. Ouch!