This Opinion article was submitted by Darius Sit, Founder QCP.
Company treasury is being rewritten in actual time. What started in 2020 as a contrarian hedge towards financial debasement has matured right into a coverage alternative that boards, CFOs and audit committees now debate alongside money, gilts and gold.
That change didn’t occur by chance. It adopted three structural shifts: the launch of regulated spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the USA, clearer accounting below GAAP, and a deeper, extra skilled market construction that lets treasurers dimension, retailer and hedge publicity with institutional instruments.
Firstly, the launch and adoption of ETFs has made bitcoin an investable asset class that’s recognised by conventional market members. The iShares Bitcoin Belief (IBIT) alone reported roughly $87.6 billion in web belongings as of mid-September, a scale bigger than most mid-cap equities and unattainable for treasury groups to disregard.
US spot bitcoin ETFs have seen web inflows within the lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}, offering value discovery and immediacy that merely didn’t exist two years in the past for institutional buyers. The presence of a number of issuers has narrowed spreads and lowered the operational burden of publicity for establishments that can’t or won’t self-custody.
Second, accounting. Underneath the Monetary Accounting Requirements Board’s ASU 2023-08, crypto belongings that meet outlined standards are measured at honest worth by way of revenue and loss. Early adoption was permitted, and for calendar-year filers the usual is efficient from 1 January 2025.
Put merely, because of this US corporates are out from below the outdated, uneven impairment mannequin that penalised them for volatility on the draw back however denied them mark-ups on the best way up. That alone removes a significant governance objection.
Underneath IFRS, most crypto belongings stay inside IAS 38 as intangible belongings, though entities could apply a revaluation mannequin when an lively market exists, a nuance that issues to multinationals.
Third, depth and hedging. Alongside ETFs, the listed derivatives complicated has thickened on the CME, and information providers now monitor realised and implied volatility in methods acquainted to any threat committee.
The mixture permits treasurers to overlay collars, promote cash-secured places towards deliberate accumulation, or just handle value-at-risk bands by way of futures, strategies frequent in commodities however solely not too long ago mainstreamed in bitcoin.
These constructing blocks are why company possession has broadened. Technique (the corporate previously often known as MicroStrategy) disclosed final month that it added one other 525 bitcoin, bringing its treasury to about 638,985 BTC, roughly 3% of eventual provide.
Bitcoin choices transactions now function a telling instance of how structured overlays can complement easy buy-and-hold. It’s one of a number of instruments that may flip a unstable asset right into a managed treasury publicity with outlined threat budgets.
The query is, what ought to a contemporary treasury coverage seem like? Begin with sizing and mandate. Bitcoin just isn’t money. It’s a scarce, non-sovereign asset with a 21 million provide cap and a halving schedule that has now slowed new issuance to three.125 bitcoin per block.
For many companies, that argues for a core-satellite strategy: a small, policy-approved core (for instance, 1–5% of gross money and marketable securities) held for strategic causes, with a satellite tv for pc sleeve for opportunistic purchases or yield overlays.
The objective just isn’t day-trading, however fairly to align publicity with company threat tolerance and liquidity wants. Select the instrument to suit the jurisdiction. Direct spot holdings provide the best management however require custody, key administration, board-level controls and audit-ready processes.
ETFs scale back operational complexity and may be applicable for some public corporations, although not each jurisdiction or mandate will allow them. The development of US spot ETFs (in mixture holding effectively over one million bitcoin throughout autos globally) has nonetheless modified the liquidity calculus for everybody.
Institutional-grade custody just isn’t non-compulsory. Multi-signature, role-based entry, segregation of duties and disaster-recovery rehearsals must be commonplace.
For boards acquainted with bodily bullion or bearer devices, the parallels are useful. In follow, the operational playbook now exists. The tougher half is cultural, guaranteeing audit and safety groups are skilled and empowered.
Hedge what issues. A treasury that buys steadily can promote cash-secured places to enhance entry factors, or collar a portion of holdings forward of recognized liabilities. The level is to make volatility a managed enter fairly than a headline threat. Treasury leaders already do that with FX and commodities, and bitcoin must be no completely different.
The power debate round proof-of-work will proceed, however the empirical image has modified. New analysis from Cambridge’s Centre for Different Finance finds that sustainable power (together with renewables and nuclear) now accounts for about 52% of bitcoin mining’s energy combine, with coal markedly diminished and pure gasoline extra outstanding.
That doesn’t finish the dialog on emissions, nevertheless it means boards ought to replace their priors and demand on present information when making coverage.
Anticipate cycles and plan round them. Bitcoin’s fourth halving tightened provide simply as regulated ETFs broadened demand. That cocktail has supported costs in 2025, with periodic consolidations and spurts of institutional flows into the ETFs.
A smart coverage recognises that drawdowns are half of the asset’s nature, budgets for them, and treats opportunistic shopping for as a board-approved motion fairly than a panic transfer left to probability.
The query many CFOs ask is whether or not bitcoin improves portfolio effectivity or merely provides drama. Impartial analysis more and more exhibits the previous. As a result of bitcoin’s drivers differ from conventional belongings, small allocations have traditionally improved risk-adjusted returns in diversified portfolios. The secret is sizing and self-discipline.
In the meantime, 30-day realised volatility, which in absolute phrases continues to be excessive, has been trending decrease as participation widens and market microstructure matures.
There are, of course, actual constraints. Most corporations nonetheless grapple with intangible-asset remedy and impairment guidelines, even with the revaluation pathway in concept. Banks face capital necessities that make unbacked crypto onerous to carry on their stability sheet.
And regulators will proceed to refine disclosure templates and prudential requirements in ways in which have an effect on counterparties, lenders and market plumbing. None of it is a cause to keep away from bitcoin altogether. It’s a cause to design treasury coverage with authorized, accounting and threat groups on the desk from day one.
From the place we sit, the future of bitcoin treasury will look much less like a guess and extra like a course of.
Boards will set modest strategic allocations. Finance groups will implement by way of a combination of direct holdings and ETFs, whereas threat managers will use listed derivatives to form pay-offs. Auditors will take a look at controls and fair-value marks, and ESG committees will interrogate the power information fairly than caricatures.
Some corporations will go additional, elevating capital to purchase giant reserves and utilizing these reserves as collateral to amass cash-generating companies, as we’re already seeing in Japan. However most won’t must. The vital factor is that the choice now exists inside mainstream governance.
Bitcoin won’t substitute money on the stability sheet. It’ll, nonetheless, sit alongside it for a rising quantity of corporations as a scarce, moveable reserve that may be sized, saved and risk-managed with the identical professionalism we carry to each different monetary publicity.
Treasurers don’t should be evangelists. They want a coverage, a playbook and the fitting companions. On that, we have now by no means had extra alternative, or extra readability.
Darius is the Co-founder and Managing Associate at QCP Capital, a digital asset buying and selling agency, who beforehand labored for years as a Macro Dealer at Dymon Asia Capital and managed the Asia FX & Bonds guide at BNP Paribas. Bringing his background in cross-asset buying and selling, monetary modeling, and expertise advising main crypto initiatives, he applies his deep capital markets data to the crypto-asset house.
