Crypto Treasury Landscape Faces Major Shakeout in 2026, Pantera Capital Warns
Investment firm Pantera Capital forecasts an aggressive wave of consolidation among companies holding digital assets in their corporate treasuries, anticipating that well-funded giants will corner the market as weaker competitors face acquisition or failure.
Companies maintaining digital asset treasury (DAT) positions are expected to undergo a period of intense consolidation throughout 2026, with the most financially robust and heavily capitalized entities continuing their Bitcoin and Ether accumulation strategies while their less-resourced competitors find themselves unable to maintain the same aggressive pace, according to a forecast from Pantera Capital.
The investment firm Pantera Capital expects DATs to experience "brutal pruning" during 2026, leaving only a handful of powerful corporate treasuries controlling the space, the asset management company stated in a post shared on X this Wednesday. "Everyone else gets acquired or left behind except for a longer-tail token winner going along for the ride."
Throughout this year to date, this consolidation trend has been particularly evident within Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) treasury operations, with the companies possessing the strongest financial backing leading the charge in asset accumulation.
Ether treasuries concentrate among few players
BitMine, which holds the position as Ether's biggest corporate accumulator, has maintained its consistent buying strategy into the new year, whereas the majority of other treasury companies focused on Ether have remained silent regarding fresh acquisitions throughout 2026. According to BitMine's announcement, the firm purchased 35,268 ETH valued at approximately $104 million during the seven-day period ending on Tuesday. Following this latest acquisition, the company's total holdings now stand at 4.2 million ETH (valued at $12.9 billion), representing 3.48% of Ether's entire circulating supply, after accumulating a combined total of 92,511 Ether worth roughly $277 million from the beginning of this year.
Investment company Trend Research, operating out of Hong Kong, has accumulated 41,500 Ether valued at approximately $126 million throughout 2026 thus far, whereas other Ether-focused DATs have not yet announced any publicly disclosed purchasing activity.
Trend Research has chosen to finance its Ether acquisition strategy through decentralized borrowing mechanisms offered by the Aave lending protocol, which allows the firm to avoid reliance on conventional capital-raising approaches such as equity share offerings, which are typically utilized by publicly traded treasury companies.
Bitcoin treasuries led by Strategy
Within the Bitcoin treasury space, the concentration of purchasing power has proven to be even more pronounced. Strategy, under the leadership of Michael Saylor, has maintained its position as the predominant purchaser among publicly traded companies holding Bitcoin.
Strategy's most recent acquisition involved purchasing 22,306 Bitcoin during the previous week at a cost of approximately $2.13 billion, which elevates the company's cumulative holdings to 709,715 BTC acquired for a total of roughly $53.9 billion, representing an average acquisition cost of $75,979 per BTC.
Information compiled by Bitcoinquant indicates that corporate Bitcoin treasury operations collectively possess approximately 1.13 million Bitcoin, which accounts for roughly 5.4% of the cryptocurrency's total available supply, although these numbers can fluctuate based on the specific criteria used to classify treasury companies.
The increasing centralization of Bitcoin and Ether holdings within a limited number of corporate treasury operations has sparked concerns regarding the long-term viability of smaller treasury companies, especially those organizations that became dependent on debt financing or equity issuance strategies during previous periods of favorable market conditions.
As December came to a close, cryptocurrency treasury company ETHZilla liquidated Ether holdings valued at $74.5 million in order to satisfy repayment obligations on senior secured convertible notes, underscoring the mounting financial challenges confronting treasury players with weaker capitalization positions.