The Next Cycle Belongs to the Power Plants, Not the Treasuries

After a transformational 2025 for capital markets access to digital assets, the hype boils down to one central takeaway: simply holding an asset on the balance sheet is not enough in the long term. Instead, public digital asset companies must actively work to build productive businesses to remain relevant to investors and competitive within a continuously evolving market.

Everyone Wants a Piece

Over the past 9 months, an influx of new public companies focused on various digital assets, including Solana, flooded the scene. The potential investor upside even influenced a number of non-crypto related companies to pivot business strategies toward digital asset treasury accumulation, effectively redefining corporate finance across industries. This category of company is generally referred to as a Digital Asset Treasury, or DAT.

Suddenly, investors had myriad options to consider — those seeking exposure to the price appreciation of Solana, Ethereum, or Bitcoin could choose between several DATs. As these vehicles may differ modestly in capital structure or balance-sheet composition, they all operate under the same core principle: a premium to NAV above one benefits existing shareholders, while a premium below one presents an attractive entry point for new investors.

NAV quickly became a competitive battleground for DATs, and while this strategy appeared sufficient when the market was starved for access, as the cycle continued, pricing began to fall due to supply and demand. The year ended with a crypto crab-market, with many DATs trading sideways due to waning capital markets activity or interest, prompting lingering questions of their relevance.

At the same time, the rise of spot ETFs tightened the vise on DATs because they delivered more simplicity through price exposure. A DAT may offer the promise of asymmetric upside through capital markets activity, but with weaker market sentiment and already strained balance sheets, this seemed less and less promising.

Where to Go From Here?

In this environment, it’s clear NAV is no longer enough. Sustainable growth and competitive advantage must come from real operating businesses built on a clear thesis and deep understanding of the technologies and ecosystems they operate in.

Take Solana, for example: the network’s low cost, high speed, and scalable infrastructure position it as the strongest blockchain for internet capital markets. While most Solana DATs remain focused on building passive treasuries, a growing number are recognizing the need to develop revenue-generating businesses. The upside of the Solana economy extends well beyond pure speculation on SOL’s price. Capturing that upside requires building real infrastructure, products, partnerships, and, ultimately, a customer base. 

As on-chain finance moves toward a global standard, it requires a clearer understanding for how blockchain economies grow. Some metrics mirror traditional nation-bound economies, like debt and sources of income, while blockchain-based economies function across borders beyond individual markets. To stimulate growth within these economies, DATs need to transition into active operators, done through infrastructure development, like operating validators that secure the network. This allows these businesses to capture value from both the treasury and the network itself, while ensuring the chain’s long-term viability.

This multi-pronged business model provides greater stability and durability to DATs, which are otherwise at the mercy of the market, and fosters opportunity for ETF providers to become partners, rather than competitors. In 2026, capital will rotate away from passive holders to entities powering the network that gives the asset value. 

In today’s maturing crypto economy, the operator advantage comes from running validators, developing staking products for institutions and retail users, offering superior compliance and reporting, and participating in governance to steer the network’s direction. As Solana grows from increased transaction volume, payments, and DeFi, operators will be capturing some of that value and compounding their revenue streams.

Solana’s Promise

The future of global finance is a globally synchronized, real-time system where participants in New York, Tokyo, and Cape Town interact continuously without the constraints of national markets or trading hours.

Solana will play a pivotal role in that future as the infrastructure rails where composable markets, deep liquidity, complex derivatives and real world assets can be traded. The Solana Economy becomes a global economy, representative of real value accrual and transfer between individuals, mid-sized asset managers and the largest banks.

For infrastructure operators, this evolution is the holy grail. High-velocity markets require high-performance operators. The businesses that can guarantee up-time, optimize latency, and process the sheer weight of global commerce, will become the new systematically important institutions of the digital age.

In that Solana economy, those building the tracks will have the real staying-power, while those speculating remain stuck on the sidelines. ETFs may have commoditized price exposure, but they can’t commoditize network participation. As we look toward the rest of the decade, the question is simple: do you want to own the static vault, or do you want to own the active power plant? 

Michael Hubbard is a tech and blockchain entrepreneur who founded one of Solana's leading independent validators, Laine, and has been a key contributor to the Solana ecosystem and governance. Michael currently serves as interim CEO of SOL Strategies, where he leads the company’s growth as an institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure provider.