HYPE treasury firms hold $1.1B+ in unrealized gains while Strategy, Bitmine, and Forward Industries face $12B+ combined paper losses. The divergence hinges on entry price and time horizon.
Alpha Score of 14 reflects poor overall profile with poor momentum, weak quality, poor sentiment. Based on 3 of 4 signals – score is capped at 90 until remaining data ingests.
The corporate crypto treasury trade has fractured. Hyperliquid (HYPE) focused treasury firms remain the only major group still holding meaningful paper gains, while companies built around bitcoin, ether, and Solana reserves are carrying billions of dollars in unrealized losses. The divergence sharpened this week as BTC fell toward $59,100 and ETH dropped below $1,550, sending several high-profile treasury positions deep into red territory.
Artemis data shows Hyperliquid Strategies holds about 23.7 million HYPE and still carries more than $1.1 billion in unrealized gains. That figure holds even after HYPE pulled back 11.98% from its record high above $74 earlier this week.
Hyperion DeFi, which disclosed just over 2 million HYPE in its latest SEC filing, also remains in profit. Artemis estimates the company has about $35 million in unrealized gains on its HYPE holdings.
The mechanism is simple. HYPE treasury firms bought the token at a lower average cost than current prices, and the token's pullback has not been deep enough to erase that margin. The contrast with BTC, ETH, and SOL treasury firms is not about superior strategy. It is about entry price and time horizon. HYPE treasury firms accumulated before the broader market downturn, while many BTC and ETH treasury firms added positions through 2024 and 2025 at higher average prices.
Practical rule: A treasury position's viability hinges on the gap between average acquisition cost and current spot price. When that gap flips negative, the treasury thesis shifts from asset appreciation to capital preservation.
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) remains the largest public bitcoin holder. SaylorTracker data shows the company now holds more than $12.8 billion in unrealized bitcoin losses. The company began buying BTC when the asset traded near $10,000, its average acquisition cost has climbed to about $75,000 per BTC after years of purchases.
When bitcoin topped $126,000 last October, Strategy had more than $14 billion in unrealized gains. SaylorTracker data later showed those gains turned into about $9.5 billion in losses in February before briefly returning to positive territory in April.
This week, Strategy said it sold 32 bitcoins for $2.5 billion. After that announcement, bitcoin fell toward $59,100 on Friday afternoon, leaving Strategy with a paper loss of about 20% on its holdings. MSTR shares were down more than 11% on Friday near $116, close to a two-year low.
The sale of 32 BTC for $2.5 billion – an implied price of about $78,125 per BTC – suggests Strategy executed above its average cost. The broader position remains underwater by a wide margin.
Ethereum treasury companies are under pressure after ETH fell below $1,550 on Friday, its lowest level in more than a year.
Artemis estimates that Bitmine, chaired by Fundstrat's Tom Lee, has about $10.5 billion in unrealized losses on more than 5.4 million ETH. At current prices, those holdings are worth about $8.6 billion.
Bitmine's ETH position represents nearly 4.5% of Ethereum's circulating supply. The company has previously said it wants to raise that figure to 5%. BMNR shares fell more than 10% on Friday to around $16, their lowest level since the firm launched its ether treasury strategy in June 2025.
The scale of Bitmine's position creates a second-order risk. A position that large cannot be unwound quickly without moving the market. If sentiment deteriorates further, the mere possibility of a distressed sale could weigh on ETH prices.
Sharplink, another major ether treasury company, holds nearly 869,000 ETH. Artemis data estimates its paper loss at about $1.8 billion.
| Entity | Asset | Holdings | Unrealized P&L | % of Supply Held |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | BTC | ~499,000 | -$12.8B | ~2.4% |
| Bitmine | ETH | ~5.4M | -$10.5B | ~4.5% |
| Sharplink | ETH | ~869,000 | -$1.8B | ~0.7% |
| Forward Industries | SOL | ~6.8M | -$1.2B | ~1.5% |
Solana treasury firms have also taken losses as SOL fell below $65 on Friday, its weakest price since late 2023.
As previously reported by crypto.news, Forward Industries, the largest public Solana treasury company, holds more than 6.8 million SOL. Artemis data estimates the company now has about $1.2 billion in unrealized losses on those holdings.
The Solana treasury trade was built on the thesis that SOL would maintain its market share against Ethereum through lower fees and higher throughput. That thesis has not collapsed. The entry price for most corporate buyers was too high to survive a 60%+ drawdown from SOL's peak.
The split between HYPE treasury firms and the rest of the digital asset treasury universe is not random. It reflects a positioning reality: HYPE treasury firms entered at lower prices and did not scale up aggressively during the 2024-2025 rally. BTC, ETH, and SOL treasury firms added positions at higher average costs, leaving them exposed when the macro environment shifted.
Key insight: The HYPE exception confirms that the crypto treasury model works when entry timing is favorable. It does not prove the model is robust across market cycles. Treasury firms that accumulated at peak valuations now carry structural balance-sheet risk that no amount of narrative can fix.
For the HYPE exception to persist, HYPE would need to hold above $45, keeping Hyperliquid Strategies and Hyperion DeFi in profit. Any sustained break below that level would eliminate the last profitable treasury cohort.
For the BTC, ETH, and SOL treasury firms, the path back to profitability depends entirely on price recovery. The companies themselves have limited options. Selling at a loss would crystallize the damage and likely trigger a margin call cascade if the loans used to buy the tokens are collateralized. Holding and waiting is the only viable strategy. That strategy depends on markets recovering before equity holders lose patience.
For traders who want to track the MSTR position specifically, the MSTR stock page shows the live Alpha Score of 16/100 (Weak label, Technology sector). For broader crypto market analysis, the divergence between treasury winners and losers is likely to widen before it narrows.
The HYPE exception has spared one corner of the corporate treasury trade. Everywhere else, the paper losses are real, large, and growing. The next question is whether equity holders will tolerate those losses long enough for a recovery, or whether the sell-first-ask-questions-later pattern that hit BTC miners in 2022 repeats with treasury stocks in 2026.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.