Cryptocurrency Treasury Stocks Drop as Shareholders Review Compensation Deals

Shares of publicly listed companies in the digital asset treasury sector continue to languish, with shareholders facing cumulative losses of approximately $50 billion. Retail and institutional investors are beginning to scrutinize employee compensation, equity incentives, and related transactions. According to Artemis, the fully diluted market capitalization of publicly listed treasury companies investing in Bitcoin and Ethereum is about $90 billion, down approximately 40% from its peak.

SkyAI, a treasury company on Solana, has seen its stock price drop nearly 90% since its financing transformation in August 2025. Forward Industries is urging shareholders to oppose its equity incentive plan, which proposes to allocate about 7.2% of shares for approximately 30 employees, valued at about $4 million at current prices, corresponding to approximately 5.145 million shares. Forward also questions the consulting fees paid to a company controlled by the chief investment officer's relatives and the issuance of warrants. SkyAI claims that the arrangements have been reviewed by the board and publicly disclosed, with the fair value of the strategic advisor's warrants recorded at approximately $101.3 million according to U.S. accounting standards, and the advisor has not sold shares. Shareholders holding about 9.99% of shares, such as Bastion Trading, plan to abstain from voting on all board candidates. The annual meeting is scheduled around September 18. Forward itself holds about 7.01 million SOL and has previously proposed an all-stock update offer with a subsequent 50% premium, which the board rejected.

Bitcoin treasury Metaplanet has dropped about 84% from its peak in June 2025. In response to dilution and criticism of executive incentives, the company has canceled some warrant arrangements and will hire independent external experts to redo compensation. Reports indicate that the canceled warrants were valued at approximately $220 million. Nakamoto, led by David Bailey, has fallen about 99% from its peak and has acquired two other companies it leads with stock, raising concerns about conflicts of interest among some market participants.

These companies previously relied on issuing shares at a premium to buy coins in a cycle. After the premium shrinks, the same issuance becomes pure dilution for existing shareholders, with compensation and related transactions shifting from growth expenses to items competing for remaining market value.

Mechanically, this shifts from "premium printing to buy coins" to governance discounting: buying the right to vote against incentives and related transactions, while selling the narrative of treating the treasury as a permanent bull market option. Active shareholders who propose acquisitions and demand changes in compensation benefit; while management, which still designs option pools based on peak values, and late-stage shareholders, calculated on a fully diluted basis, are under pressure. If the decline in token prices is smaller than the decline in stock prices, the discount may attract peers to acquire smaller treasuries.

Additionally, treasury stocks have generally dropped more than their held cryptocurrencies. There have been instances in the industry of selling coin holdings and delistings. The $90 billion figure represents the fully diluted basis for Bitcoin and Ethereum treasuries, excluding all altcoin treasuries.

Source: Public Information