Curriculum·S212 TradFi Access Rails: ETFs, ETPs, and Treasuries·about 34 min

Digital asset treasury companies

By the end of this lesson you can

→Explain the mNAV flywheel and why it reverses below a multiple of one
→Compute how debt and premium together turn a moderate asset decline into an equity wipeout
→Identify what a treasury company share is a claim on, and in what order
→State the conditions under which the structure is a reasonable access route

Sophomore · enrolled learners

This lesson opens with Satsuma Technology, 2025 to 2026.

What happened: Satsuma Technology was a London-listed digital asset treasury company. In June and August 2025 it raised about £169M through two convertible loan notes, the second of £163.6M, about $217.6M, led by ParaFi with subscribers including Pantera Capital and Kraken, and bought 1,199 BTC at an average cost of about £88,000 a coin, by our arithmetic from the company's figures. When only part of the noteholders agreed to convert, the rest could take cash at maturity on 31 December 2025, and in December the company sold 579 of its 1,199 BTC for net proceeds of about £40M to help meet roughly £78M due to them. In April 2026 Bloomberg reported that Pantera, holding about 7 percent, was among investors pushing the board to sell the remaining bitcoin and return cash; in May holders of more than 20 percent requisitioned a vote, and four of the six directors recommended against it. On 30 June 2026 the company's own fact pack put its mNAV at 0.80, meaning the shares were valued below the 668 BTC it then held. On 20 July 2026 shareholders approved the capital return with 90.63 percent of votes cast and delisting with 90.59 percent. The company sold all its bitcoin, the High Court approved a return of about £30.7M on 8 September 2026, and the listing was canceled on 21 October 2026.
The decision point: The 579 BTC sold in December fetched about £69,100 each against an average cost of about £88,000, and the 620 original coins kept were marked at £44,042 on 30 June 2026, so blended across both tranches the original bitcoin was down roughly 36 percent. A share bought at 2.76 pence in September 2025 was valued at about 0.21 pence on the same June date, down more than 90 percent, and the company's own illustration had the second note's holders who converted getting back about £22.1M of the £86.8M they put in, while the noteholders who chose cash had already been repaid under the notes' terms. That difference is the entire subject of this lesson, and none of it came from the asset. It came from convertible debt sitting ahead of shareholders, from dilution at the conversion price, and from a market premium that existed while the model was working and became a discount afterwards.

What you will be able to answer

→What is mNAV?
→Why does the flywheel reverse below one?
→Why did the equity fall so much further than the coin?
→What is a treasury company share a claim on?

Orientation and Year One are open: anyone can read them without an account. From Year Two onward the lessons are for enrolled learners, because progress through the later years only means anything if it is tracked against a record.

It is free. We do not sell the list and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.

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Terms used here

Liquidation Leverage

Sources and review

Confidence medium·Volatility high·Reviewed 2026-08-06·Owner unassigned

Contested

Marked medium confidence and high volatility because this category is roughly a year old at scale and is changing quickly. The structural arguments about mNAV, seniority and the flywheel are durable arithmetic. Any statement about which companies exist, what they hold, or where they trade is not, and the named figures are dated deliberately.

Naming Satsuma is not a claim of wrongdoing. The return of capital was requisitioned by shareholders holding more than 20 percent, recommended against by four of the six directors, approved by more than ninety percent of votes cast, and returned about £30.7M. The failure being taught is structural and would apply to any company with the same balance sheet.

Several of the figures here are our arithmetic from the company's announcements rather than figures the company printed. The average cost of about £88,000 a coin is the total cost of 645.7 BTC given on 2 April 2026, less the 25.65 BTC bought that week, divided by the 620 original coins. The sale price of about £69,100 is the £40M net proceeds over 579 coins. The share value of about 0.21 pence is the fact pack's mNAV of 0.80 times its £29.44M bitcoin value, over 11.2 billion shares. The 2.76 pence of 1 September 2025 is Alliance News's, and part of the fall from it is dilution: the second note converted at 1 penny a share, and the share count went from a weighted average of about 473 million in the half-year to August 2025 to 11.2 billion by December 2025.

Press coverage of the July 2026 vote, including Bitcoin Magazine and Cryptonomist, reported a fall of more than 99 percent from a June 2025 peak of £14 to around 21 pence. Those figures cannot be reconciled with the company's filings: at 21 pence, 11.2 billion shares would be worth about £2.4bn against a net asset value of about £33M. They look like a unit error, pounds for pence at the peak and pence for hundredths of a penny at the low, but we could not confirm the June 2025 peak from a primary record, so this lesson uses the September 2025 price instead. The same coverage, and CoinDesk, give the holding liquidated as 668 BTC, which is correct; it includes about 48 BTC bought in April 2026.

This lesson does not evaluate whether any treasury company is a good or bad holding. Per P10 it makes no claim about future returns in either direction. It teaches what the share is a claim on.

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