77% of Corporate Bitcoin Treasury Companies Are Underwater – 65% Are Down More Than 20% Crypto News

on March 12, 2026

Capriole’s BTC Treasuries in Loss indicator shows 77.4% of public companies holding BTC in their corporate treasuries are currently sitting below their cost basis, with 65.6% more than 20% underwater, as BTC trades at $67,001 against average entry prices that for several major holders sit well above current levels.

The Cost Basis Problem

The three most visible corporate treasury holders illustrate the range of unrealized loss exposure. Strategy, the largest corporate BTC holder with 738,731 BTC, carries an estimated average entry price of approximately $75,863, placing its entire treasury roughly 12% below cost at current prices. According to the data, Metaplanet, which holds 35,102 BTC and launched its venture arm this week, entered at an estimated average of $97,000, leaving it approximately 31% below cost basis. Semler Scientific sits in the most favorable position of the three at an estimated $65,000 average entry, meaning it remains marginally above water at $67,001.

The 65.6% figure representing companies more than 20% below cost basis is the more consequential number. A 20% unrealized loss is manageable for a company with a strong balance sheet and no debt obligations requiring BTC liquidation. It becomes a stress event when companies have leveraged their BTC positions through debt instruments, preferred stock dividends, or convertible notes that create liquidity requirements regardless of asset price.

What the Historical Chart Shows

The Capriole indicator running from 2022 through early 2026 provides critical context. The previous peak in the percentage of treasuries below cost basis occurred in mid-2022 through early 2023, when BTC fell from $69,000 to below $16,000. At that point the indicator reached similar elevated levels as today. What followed was a full recovery as BTC climbed back above the cost basis of companies that had accumulated during the 2021 peak.

The current reading at 77.4% below cost basis is occurring at a meaningfully higher absolute price than the 2022 to 2023 stress period. Companies that entered during the 2024 and 2025 accumulation cycle at prices between $60,000 and $100,000 are experiencing paper losses at BTC levels that would have represented significant gains for the 2020 and 2021 cohort. The cost basis distribution has shifted upward with each institutional accumulation wave.

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The Stress Test Hidden in the Structure

The Strive analysis published earlier described a company that retired 92% of debt from the Semler acquisition and expects to be fully debt-free by April. That deliberate debt elimination is a direct response to the risk visible in this chart. A leveraged BTC treasury company holding assets 20% to 30% below cost basis while servicing debt obligations faces a fundamentally different risk profile than an unlevered holder sitting on paper losses with no forced liquidation trigger.
Strategy’s $75,863 average entry sitting above current price is the most watched number in corporate BTC treasury analysis. Michael Saylor has consistently argued that Strategy’s BTC-per-share metric rather than dollar profit and loss is the relevant measure of performance. That framing works as long as the company’s debt service obligations do not require selling BTC at current prices. Strategy’s debt structure and maturity schedule determine whether the unrealized loss remains a paper figure or becomes a realized one.

77% of corporate BTC treasury companies underwater simultaneously is a historical stress reading. The last time this indicator reached comparable levels, it marked the period immediately before BTC’s recovery cycle began.

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