BTC has been halved, DAT company has a hundred billion loss, who is "selling coins to stem the bleeding"?

Author: Ding Dong ( @XiaMiPP )

The beginning of 2026 dealt a severe blow to DAT (Digital Asset Treasury) companies.

BTC retreated from a peak of $120,000 in December 2025 to around $60,000, a drop of nearly 50%. ETH similarly was not spared, falling below the $2,000 mark, nearly erasing all gains since May 2025. This was precisely the moment when a group of DAT companies represented by SharpLink and Bitmine loudly announced strategic transformations and significantly allocated resources to cryptocurrency assets.

What does this mean? It means that those public companies or institutions that once treated BTC and ETH as "corporate strategic reserves" are now collectively trapped in a state of unrealized losses, with paper losses often exceeding hundreds of millions or even tens of billions of dollars. Leading players like Strategy and Bitmine are still gritting their teeth and increasing their positions, trying to maintain the stability of the "long-term believers" narrative; however, many small and medium-sized or highly leveraged DAT companies have begun to show substantial reductions or even phased liquidation behaviors.

Cryptocurrency has always been rich with stories. If 2025 was the year of "writing faith into financial reports," then 2026 is a test of how faith can endure a bear market. When prices retreat, leverage tightens, and the financing environment reverses, can these DAT companies still hold up their balance sheets?

Odaily Planet Daily will individually analyze several representative cases that have begun to "sell coins to stem the bleeding," looking at how much they sold, why they sold, and what will happen after they sell out.

Cango Inc. (NYSE: CANG): The Leveraged Limit of Mining Models

On February 9, Cango disclosed that it had sold 4,451 bitcoins on the open market, generating net proceeds of approximately $305 million, all of which will be used to repay a loan secured against BTC. This transaction size was close to half of its previous holdings, leaving only 3,645 BTC on the books after the sale.

Cango was founded in 2010, headquartered in China, initially as a well-known automotive trading service platform. From November 2024, Cango officially entered the digital asset space, transforming into a Bitcoin mining company through business restructuring and strategic shifts, considering BTC as its core reserve asset. Cango's Bitcoin strategy was initially biased towards HODL + mining accumulation, meaning not selling coins and continuously increasing holdings through hash power. This model can self-reinforce during price upcycles: the rise in coin prices enhances net asset value, which improves financing capabilities, in turn supporting hash power expansion.

Cango started accumulating bitcoins in November 2024 and at one point had the second-largest bitcoin mining holding globally, second only to MARA Holdings.

However, mining is inherently a leveraged industry. Purchasing mining machines, constructing mining sites, and securing power contracts all require upfront capital expenditure, and mining companies often use their held BTC as collateral to obtain equipment from manufacturers and delay payments, or borrow USD/stablecoins from institutions/platforms to expand mining sites, purchase equipment, and maintain operations. The downside of this model is that when BTC prices significantly pull back, collateral ratios can deteriorate rapidly, amplifying leverage risks, while fixed costs such as electricity, maintenance, and equipment depreciation do not decrease, severely straining cash flow.

According to third-quarter data released in December 2025, Cango's average mining all-in cost (including depreciation) was about $99,000 per coin, while cash costs without depreciation were around $81,000 per coin. Bitcoin prices are now far below their shutdown price, so it can only sell some BTC to "stem the bleeding," improving the balance sheet and reducing financial leverage.

Notably, Cango has announced plans to shift some resources towards artificial intelligence computing infrastructure, seeking business diversification to reduce reliance on a single asset's price.

Empery Digital Inc. (NASDAQ: EMPD): The Reverse Pressure of Bull Market Financing Logic

Empery Digital was established in February 2020 (originally named Frog ePowersports Inc., later renamed Volcon Inc.), headquartered in Texas, USA, originally focused on all-electric off-road power vehicles.

In July 2025, the company announced its Bitcoin treasury strategy. Looking back, this timing was right around the peak of the Bitcoin price in this round. The company raised approximately $450-500 million through private placements and credit financing, and accumulated about 4,000 bitcoins between July and August 2025, with an average cost of approximately $117,000 per coin. At current prices, the unrealized loss is nearly 57%.

On February 6, Empery Digital announced the sale of 357.7 BTC at an average price of approximately $68,000 per coin, raising about $24 million to fund share buybacks and repay some debt. It has already repurchased over 15.4 million shares at an average price of $6.71, aiming to narrow the NAV discount. Currently, Empery holds about 3,724 bitcoins.

The case of Empery Digital exemplifies the typical predicament faced by small and medium-sized DAT companies. They initially made aggressive transformations relying on bull market financing but were forced during the price pullback to "sell coins to repurchase + deleverage." Compared to Cango's mining background, Empery resembles more of a "pure financial play." Its original main business is unsustainable, so it borrowed heavily at high prices in the bull market to buy BTC, trying to replicate the path of Strategy, but the significant pullback in BTC exposed its leverage risks, lacking the long-term issuance and capital market operating space. If prices continue to decline, continuous liquidation becomes almost a necessary option.

Bitdeer Technologies Group (NASDAQ: BTDR): From Price Betting to Cash Flow Priority

Bitdeer was established in December 2021 by crypto OG Wu Jihan (former co-founder of Bitmain) and ranks among the major Bitcoin mining companies globally alongside MARA and Riot.

Bitdeer provides a full-chain solution from equipment procurement, logistics, data center design/construction, equipment management to daily operations through a vertical integration model, while also expanding into cloud computing, hosting services, and proprietary ASIC mining machine R&D. This has shifted Bitdeer's business from pure mining to diversified high-performance computing, which somewhat cushions the impact of Bitcoin price fluctuations.

According to data from bitcointreasuries.net, since November 2025, Bitdeer's BTC strategy has shifted to "mining while selling," no longer holding all positions, but maintaining cash flow and operational stability through partial liquidation. Prioritizing cash flow over long-term holding—is this the sensitivity to the industry experienced by OGs through multiple cycles of bullish and bearish markets?

Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS): Selling Coins to Repay Debt Becomes an Industry Turning Point

Sequans was established in October 2003 and was originally a semiconductor company focused on wireless cellular technology chips and modules. In June 2025, the company raised approximately $380 million through private equity and convertible bonds to accumulate Bitcoin, transforming itself from a pure IoT chip vendor to a "IoT + BTC DAT" hybrid.

Between July and October 2025, Sequans accumulated 3,233 bitcoins, roughly estimating an average cost of about $116,000.

In November 2025, it made its first significant reduction, selling 970 BTC to redeem about 50% of its convertible bonds, reducing total company debt from $189 million to $94.5 million. The company referred to this as "strategic asset redistribution," not a relinquishment of strategy. However, from the market's perspective, Sequans became the starting point of the BTC treasury "bubble burst"—the first publicly acknowledged DAT company that needed to sell coins to repay debt.

ETHZilla Corporation (NASDAQ: ETHZ): A Case Study in De-leveraging ETH Treasury

ETHZilla Corporation was originally a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on drug development and treatments for chronic pain, inflammation, and fibrosis. The company faced issues of cash shortages, poor liquidity, and slow R&D progress, resulting in long-term depressed stock prices.

In August 2025, it raised $425-565 million through private placements, with investors including Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, GSR, as well as entities related to Peter Thiel holding about 7.5%. These funds were directly used to purchase ETH and establish an Ethereum treasury. At its peak, ETHZilla had accumulated about 102,000 ETH, worth approximately $210 million, with an average acquisition cost of $3,841.

On November 13, 2025, ETHZilla began its first reduction, selling 8,293 ETH; on December 25, ETHZilla disclosed it had sold 24,291 ETH, raising approximately $74.5 million. This transaction was part of redeeming unsettled senior secured convertible notes and is also the first known example of an ETH treasury reduction. Currently, ETHZilla's ETH holdings amount to about 65,700 ETH.

Similar to Empery, ETHZilla is also on the path of being forced to sell coins to deleverage. However, the company is accelerating its transition towards RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization), focusing on areas such as auto loans, mortgage loans, and land/commercial real estate, with plans to launch its first RWA token product in early 2026, attempting to reshape value through business innovation.

Conclusion

The above are just a few representative samples, most of which are in the mid-range of the industry, lacking the capital market pricing power of Strategy and not as able to quietly exit the stage as the smallest companies. Beyond them, some smaller and structurally weaker DAT companies have quietly disappeared in this round of retreat; others that initially planned to transform but had not truly implemented treasury strategies chose to hit the pause button after the financing environment suddenly tightened, and some even ended their projects before they had launched.

The correction in 2026 acts like a mirror, reflecting the vulnerability and resilience of the DAT model. Companies that solely relied on "storytelling + leverage" are now paying the price for their initial aggressive expansion. Crypto faith may still exist, but it ultimately must coexist with the realities of cash flow, leverage management, and business sustainability.

The gap between leading players and small to medium-sized companies is being continuously widened in this process. Rather than being the end of the DAT model, it may be more accurate to say it marks the starting point of its stratification phase.

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