Bitcoin treasury companies are piling on debt at record rates to fund their BTC buying, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards warned, reviving a year-old call that the model rests on unsustainable “fake yield.”
Bitcoin treasury companies are taking on debt at record rates to fund their bitcoin purchases, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards warned. He tied the trend back to a call he made in October 2025, arguing that the digital asset treasury (DAT) model is structurally incentivized to rely on borrowing to manufacture returns, further adding:
“ Bitcoin DATs are levering up at record rates. Back in Oct 2025 I warned exactly this would happen as this unsustainable business model is incentivised to rely on debt to generate fake ‘yield’.”
His core objection is to how the strategy generates its headline returns. A digital asset treasury, or DAT, is a public company that raises capital (often through debt or share sales) to accumulate bitcoin on its balance sheet. The model, pioneered by Strategy Inc. (Nasdaq: MSTR), can amplify gains when bitcoin rises, but it also adds leverage so that when prices fall, firms that borrowed to buy can face pressure to raise cash, service debt, or sell.
