Digital asset treasury (DATs) companies slowed their Ether purchases in November, securing only 370,000 coins during the month, where the second largest cryptocurrency declined 16% down from a high of $3,656.
According to data from asset management firm and ETF issuer Bitwise, treasuries bought 81% less coins from an August’s peak of 1.97 million Ether.
Bitwise senior research associate Max Shannon said the reversal was expected after the companies began piling up on Ethereum during the mid-year’s altcoin season, when most coins were hitting yearly highs.
“Treasuries were this cycle’s version of an altseason, and the same pattern is now playing out similar to previous cycles,” he said.
Ethereum treasuries surged in July after companies began copying the model of Business Intelligence-turned-Bitcoin DAT company Strategy. BitMine Immersion, led by Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee, became the highest publicly traded Ether holder trend after changing its strategy from Bitcoin mining to a long-term accumulation of Ethereum.
As Cryptopolitan reported back in September, Lee crowned Ethereum a “truly neutral chain” during a presentation at Korea Blockchain Week’s Impact conference.
“If you think about how Wall Street operates, they will only wanna do and operate on a neutral chain,” Lee said, adding that Ethereum fits the definition because of its developer base and its ability to support decentralized applications (dApps).
“When I look at that, combined with agentic AI and robots that are really gonna create the need for a token economy for robots, a lot of that will happen on Ethereum. In fact, President Trump just talked about how he needs proof-of-human to protect us, and a lot of that work is going to be done on Ethereum.”
Ethereum DATs experiencing structural pressure?
Per Bitwise’s associate Shannon, the slowdown in corporate buying could negatively impact Ether markets if the downturn continues, and the structural bid beneath the market may weaken even further.
“As long as the net difference between DAT purchases and new ETH supply remains positive, the DAT theme continues to provide a structural bid,” Shannon said. “This pressure is already visible in falling mNAVs and shrinking coin purchases.”
mNAV, or market-cap-to-net-asset-value, shows the premium or discount at which the public market values their crypto holdings. Shannon said the steeply collapsing purchase volume, coupled with a steady monthly issuance of roughly 80,000 Ether, could mean demand may soon dip below new supply.
Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, sees it much differently, writing in an investor note back in August that DATs must maintain an mNAV above 1 to continue buying assets sustainably.
“This matters because sustainable DATs need an mNAV above 1 if they are to continue buying underlying assets,” Kendrick surmised, talking about the significant impact these companies now have on digital currencies.
“With DATs holding 8% of all BTC, 4.74% of ETH, and 2.98% of SOL, DATs’ success has significant implications for coin prices,” he wrote.
Kendrick said investors will likely see treasury companies differentiate themselves based on their ability to raise cash, the size of their balance sheets, and their capacity to generate yield from staking. He propounded that Ether and Solana have native staking returns, so their treasuries have an advantage over Bitcoin-focused firms.
“I think the ETH DATs have the highest probability of being sustainable, and therefore, ETH buying by DATs can continue at the same pace. BitMine, Sharplink, and The Ether Machine are all important. BitMine’s Tom Lee estimates that staking yield should add 0.6 to ETH DAT mNAVs alone,” the StanChart head of digital assets research concluded.
BitMine still leads as top Ether-holding company
Looking at the latest Ether treasury holding rankings, BitMine expanded its lead at the top last week by acquiring an additional 96,798 Ether, increasing its total to 3.73 million tokens worth over $10 billion at current prices, according to a disclosure released on Monday.
The next largest holder on the list is SharpLink with 859,853 Ether, followed by The Ether Machine with 496,712 coins. Bit Digital is fourth with 153,546, while Coinbase Global comes fifth with 148,715. FG Nexus sits in eighth position with 40,005 coins, having sold over $33 million in ETH on November 20.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/ethereum-dats-only-370000-eth-in-november/
