DAT VALUE CREATION [ 01 ]
By Cosmo Jiang, General Partner, and Erik Lowe, Head of Content
Our investment thesis for Digital Asset Treasury companies (DATs) is grounded in a simple premise:
DATs can generate yield to grow net asset value per share, resulting in more underlying token ownership over time than just holding spot.
Therefore, owning a DAT could offer higher return potential compared to holding tokens directly or through an ETF.
Pantera has deployed over $300 million in DATs across various tokens and geographies. These DATs are taking advantage of their unique situations to employ strategies to grow their digital asset holdings in a per-share accretive way.
Below is a snapshot of our DAT portfolio coverage.
BitMine Immersion (BMNR), the first investment out of Pantera DAT Fund, exemplifies a company with a clear strategic roadmap and the leadership to execute it. As Chairman, Tom Lee of Fundstrat has laid out BitMine’s long-term vision of acquiring 5% of total ETH supply – what they call “The Alchemy of 5%”. We think it is useful to walk through BMNR as a case study of the value creation of a DAT that is executing at a high level.
BitMine (BMNR) Case Study
Since BitMine launched their treasury strategy, they have become the largest ETH treasury and the third largest DAT globally (behind Strategy and XXI), holding a total of 1,150,263 ETH, worth $4.9 billion (as of August 10, 2025). BMNR is also the 25th most liquid stock in the US, trading $2.2 billion per day (five-day trailing average basis as of August 8, 2025).
The Case for Ethereum
The most important element of a DAT’s success is the long-term investment merit of the underlying token. BitMine’s DAT is grounded in the thesis that Ethereum will be one of the biggest macro trends for the next decade as Wall Street moves onchain. As we wrote in last month’s letter, The Great Onchain Migration is underway as innovations in tokenization and the growing importance of stablecoins are unfolding. $25 billion in real-world assets now exist on public blockchains – this is on top of $260 billion in stablecoins, which are collectively now the 17th largest holder of US treasuries.
Stablecoins have become the ChatGPT story of crypto.”
– Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, Pantera DAT Call, July 2, 2025
Most of this activity is occurring on Ethereum, positioning ETH to benefit from rising demand for blockspace. And as financial institutions increasingly rely on Ethereum’s security to support their operations, they’ll be incentivized to participate in its proof-of-stake network – driving demand for even further ETH accumulation.
The Case for Ethereum
After establishing the investment merit of the underlying token, a DAT’s business model is maximizing its token ownership on a per share basis. There are a few main ways to grow tokens per share:
1. Issue stock at a premium to the token net asset value (“NAV”) per share.
2. Issue convertible bonds and other equity-linked securities to monetize the volatility embedded in both the stock and the underlying token.
3. Generate staking rewards, DeFi yield, and other operating income to acquire more tokens. Note that this is an additional lever that ETH and other smart-contract token DATs have that the original bitcoin DATs, including Strategy, did not.
4. Acquire another DAT that is trading close to or below NAV.