Business Expert Says Digital Treasury Companies Accelerate Market Decline

• Omid Malekan of Columbia Business School blamed digital treasuries market participants for accelerating the fall in crypto asset prices.
• According to him, few of these companies create real value, while most operate as get-rich-quick schemes.
• Malekan warned that excessive leverage and token issuance undermine the market’s resilience.

Omid Malekan, a professor at Columbia Business School, said the recent decline of the crypto market is not only due to macroeconomic factors, but also to the activities of digital treasury management (DAT) companies. Many of them contributed to the price decline rather than keeping the market stable, he said.

He noted that these instruments have actually become a “massive exit mechanism” that has accelerated the decline in asset values.

The professor emphasized that only a few companies had actually tried to “create sustainable value,” but they could be counted “on the fingers of one hand.” The rest, he said, used cryptocurrencies as a tool for quick enrichment.

Such firms have raised millions of dollars from investors without a long-term strategy, the professor said.

Malekan also reminded that creating public companies with such a structure requires large costs — for legal procedures, bankers and stock offerings. These costs are often covered by borrowed funds, which only adds to the debt burden and risk of collapse.

In his opinion, DAT companies regularly use leverage to buy tokens, and when the market falls, they are forced to sell assets, increasing pressure on prices. Additionally, they seek to profit through staking and credit protocols, which increases systemic risk.

Malekana stated, “the greatest damage to the crypto market has been done by firms organizing mass exits from supposedly blocked tokens.” He likened the excessive issuance and asset sales to “crypto currency gangrene” undermining investor confidence.

According to Bitwise Asset Management, as of October 2025, 172 companies held more than a million bitcoins worth more than $117 billion on their balance sheets. Ethereum, meanwhile, has been added to the portfolios of 70 organizations, collectively worth $20 billion.

Analysts predict that the digital treasuries market will consolidate around a few major players over time. The remaining companies will expand into other areas of Web3, experts believe.