It's the company's market value divided by the net value of the crypto it holds. Above 1 means the stock trades at a premium to its holdings. Below 1 means it trades at a discount, and at that point buying back shares can do more for remaining shareholders than holding tokens.

Are the big bitcoin treasury firms selling?

Not based on the latest news. Strive bought 1,223 BTC, Bitmine added 12,535 ETH, and Strategy bought 267 BTC. Strategy's purchase was small for a company that holds about 4% of all bitcoin.

Why should a regular investor care?

Treasury firms have been steady buyers of crypto. If more of them start selling tokens to prop up their stock prices, that buying pressure could flip to selling pressure. And if you own a treasury stock trading at a discount, the company could end up selling the very asset you bought it for.

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Crypto treasury companies split: SkyAI liquidates its SOL to fund buybacks while Strategy, Strive and Bitmine keep accumulating · 3 min read · 10/19/2026

SkyAI Sold All Its Solana to Buy Back Its Own Stock. The Bitcoin and Ether Buyers Kept Going.

Q: Did SkyAI say its stock was trading below its asset value?

No. SkyAI's mNAV wasn't reported. Selling the whole treasury to fund a buyback makes the most sense if management thinks the shares are undervalued compared with the assets, but that's an inference, not a reported figure.

One crypto treasury firm cashed out its tokens and is spending most of the money on its own shares. Strategy, Strive and Bitmine kept buying. The gap between those two moves is the story.

The gist

—SkyAI sold its entire Solana treasury and launched a $201 million buyback. That's about 90% of the $223.8 million in cash it now holds, and the buyback runs through Oct. 29.
—When a crypto treasury firm sells its tokens to buy back its stock, it's betting its shares are a better deal than the tokens. That's the opposite of the business model's pitch.
—The bitcoin and ether buyers didn't flinch. Strive added 1,223 BTC at about $81,734 each, bringing it to 36,818 BTC. Bitmine added 12,535 ETH to reach 6.04 million.
—Strategy still owns about 4% of all bitcoin and has $5.9 billion in paper gains, but its latest buy was just 267 BTC for $22 million.
—The risk to watch is treasury firms turning from steady buyers into sellers. One Solana unwind isn't a wave. A string of buybacks funded by token sales would be.

A treasury company just quit being a treasury company

Crypto treasury companies are public firms with a simple pitch: "we hold tokens so you can own them through a stock." One of them just stopped holding tokens. SkyAI sold its entire Solana stash, ended up with $223.8 million in cash, and pointed $201 million of it at buying back its own shares.

That's roughly 90% of the cash going straight back into the stock. A company built to pile up a token has effectively decided its shareholders are better off owning more of the company than owning SOL. If you hold any treasury stock, that matters, because it shows these firms aren't one-way buyers. Under the right conditions, they'll sell the very asset you bought them for.

SkyAI is pointing $201 million, about 90% of its $223.8 million cash pile, at its own stock after selling every SOL it held.

What happened, quickly

SkyAI's buyback runs through Oct. 29, and the company now holds no SOL at all.

The other big treasury names kept buying. Strive bought 1,223 bitcoin for about $100 million, paying an average of roughly $81,734 per coin. Earlier last week it bought 2,822 BTC, so that's about 4,000 bitcoin in roughly a week, for a total of 36,818 BTC. Bitmine added 12,535 ether, bringing its treasury to 6.04 million ETH and its total investment holdings to $15.1 billion.

Michael Saylor's Strategy, the biggest holder in the group, bought 267 BTC for about $22 million. It owns around 4% of all bitcoin and has $5.9 billion in paper gains. For a company that size, 267 coins is a rounding error. Strive's latest buy alone was more than four times bigger. So the money is still flowing into bitcoin and ether, but the biggest buyer of all just tapped the brakes for a week.

The mNAV math that makes selling tokens rational

The number that matters most for these firms is mNAV, short for market-to-net-asset-value. Take the company's stock market value and divide it by the value of the crypto it holds, minus debt. If the stock is worth more than the tokens behind it, mNAV is above 1. If it's worth less, mNAV is below 1.

Above 1, the model works. The company sells new shares at a premium and uses the cash to buy more tokens, so each share ends up backed by more crypto. Below 1, it runs in reverse. Issuing stock to buy tokens now leaves each share backed by less. Selling tokens to buy back stock does the opposite. A made-up example: say each share holds $1 of tokens but trades at 80 cents. Every 80 cents the company spends retires a share backed by a full dollar of tokens. The shareholders who stay get a bigger slice of what's left.

SkyAI's reported numbers don't include its mNAV, so this part is inference. But a company with a stock trading at a fat premium wouldn't sell its whole treasury to fund a buyback. The move makes the most sense if management thinks the shares are cheap compared with what's behind them. So a treasury stock trading below its holdings isn't just a bargain. It's a company with a growing reason to sell its tokens.

First domino or one-off?

For now, this is a split, not a stampede. SkyAI held Solana. The big bitcoin and ether holders are still buying, Strive aggressively and Bitmine steadily. Strategy's $5.9 billion in paper gains is a big cushion, and nothing reported here suggests it's under pressure to sell.

The warning sign is that the playbook now exists. If more treasury stocks slip below the value of their holdings, any board can point to SkyAI and call a token-funded buyback the shareholder-friendly move. That would turn a group of reliable buyers into potential sellers, and it would change who's propping up crypto prices.

What to watch: the size of Strategy's weekly purchases (a run of small numbers would say more than one week does), whether another treasury firm funds a buyback by selling tokens, and how SkyAI's stock trades after the buyback window closes on Oct. 29. If buyers like Strive keep stepping up, demand holds. If buyback announcements start outnumbering purchase announcements, take that as your signal.

Questions

It's a public company whose main strategy is holding a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, ether or SOL. Buying the stock gets investors exposure to that token. Strategy, Strive and Bitmine are examples.

Sourcessingle source

SkyAI sells off entire Solana treasury as it launches $201 million buyback — The Block
Strive scoops up another 1,223 bitcoin for $100 million as total holdings reach 36,818 BTC — The Block
Bitmine adds 12,535 ETH as treasury reaches 6.04 million tokens — The Block
‘We found room for more orange’: Michael Saylor’s Strategy buys another 267 bitcoin for $22 million — The Block

Editor’s pass: Claims cut or softened: (1) Removed 'priced at $3'. The source's '$3 buyback' is garbled and doesn't support a stated price. (2) Removed 'per The Block'. The source material isn't attributed. (3) Removed 'did the opposite on the same day'. The sources don't give dates, so the purchases aren't shown to be simultaneous. (4) Fixed the '15 times as much' comparison. It set Strive's roughly week-long total (~4,045 BTC) against a single Strategy purchase. Now it compares one buy to one buy: 1,223 vs 267, more than four times bigger. (5) Cut 'bitcoin around $82,000' as a market price. The only support is Strive's average purchase price, which the piece still cites. (6) Softened 'isn't anywhere near forced-seller territory' to 'nothing reported here suggests it's under pressure to sell'. (7) Cut 'the original bitcoin treasury play'; Strategy is described as 'the biggest holder in the group', which the 4% figure supports. (8) Cut 'admit out loud'. SkyAI didn't say anything; the read is inferred. Accuracy fix: the mNAV example wrongly claimed that each dollar of tokens sold 'retires more than a dollar of market value'. Rewrote it so 80 cents of spending retires a share backed by $1 of tokens. Title: the original question headline ('First Crack?') set up a yes that the body explicitly declines to give ('a split, not a stampede'). Replaced it with a headline the body delivers. Voice: removed reader-facing references to 'the sources', simplified takeaway 2 ('wrapper around tokens'), and tightened some sentences. So-what: the hook now spells out the stakes for treasury-stock holders, and the 'What happened' section ends with an interpretation instead of a bare recap.

Written + edited by the claude-code:opus agent · grounded in the sources above.