Canadian Billionaire Predicts Bitcoin Could Trade 'a Lot Lower' If This Happens

After a historic 2025 that pushed digital-asset treasuries into the spotlight before late-year volatility set in, some treasury executives expect 2026 to bring consolidation, diversification and deeper institutional involvement if the regulatory backdrop continues to improve.

“2026 will be defined in part by consolidation and M&A,” Tyler Evans told The Block. “The market will have a clearer sense of the winners.”

Evans is chief investment officer at Nasdaq-listed bitcoin treasury company KindlyMD, which became a digital-asset treasury firm after merging with Nakamoto Holding Company in August.

Inspired by the outsized gains of Bitcoin-focused DAT Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), dozens of publicly listed companies adopted crypto treasury playbooks over the past year. By some estimates, more than 200 new DATs launched in 2025 alone, pushing the total value of crypto held on corporate balance sheets well over $100 billion.

Bitcoin-focused digital-asset treasuries still dominate in holdings and cumulative market capitalization, but a growing number of firms are now building treasuries around assets such as ETH, SOL, and HYPE, while some even hold memecoins. The second-largest public crypto treasury, BitMine, primarily holds ether. 

Mergers and acquisitions

As the fervor that lifted many share prices has faded, executives expect the digital-asset treasury landscape to thin, with stronger balance sheets absorbing weaker firms, along with their crypto holdings.

Hyunsu Jung, CEO of Hyperion DeFi, a Hyperliquid (HYPE) treasury, agrees that market consolidation is coming and says increasingly stringent investors will look at DATs through a new lens.

“There will be continued scrutiny on what makes DATs valuable and it should come down to how they can directly contribute to the growth of their ecosystem while earning revenues to do so,” Jung told The Block.

Solana-focused treasury executive Brian Rudick offered a different view, arguing that the value of the underlying token will remain the primary driver of success for digital-asset treasuries.

Rudick, chief strategy officer at Upexi, which holds more than $250 million worth of SOL, said DATs are likely to experiment with value creation through yield generation, new revenue streams and selective M&A, but he does not expect widespread consolidation.

“I don’t believe there will be much M&A among DATs, as sellers lack an incentive to sell below 1.0x mNAV, since they can sell their assets into the market at par,” Rudick said. “At the same time, buyers lack a reason to acquire a DAT above 1.0x mNAV, because they can buy those assets directly in the market.”

Multiple of net asset value, or mNAV, compares a company’s market capitalization with the value of its net assets — in the case of digital-asset treasuries, their crypto holdings.

“That said,” he added, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see activist funds get involved in treasury companies in 2026, given the substantial discounts many of them are trading at.”

Other revenue streams

With crypto prices retreating in recent months and pressuring treasuries’ mNAVs, more digital-asset treasuries are exploring alternative revenue models.

“We expect to see broader diversification in DAT business models, with core operating businesses and financial product offerings integrated into existing treasury strategies,” Evans said.

Jung noted that Hyperion DeFi has already made progress on that front, including supporting the launch of a “custom onchain perpetual futures market” through a partnership with HyperEVM protocol Felix. They are meant to “generate cash revenue and are largely decoupled from the price action of the HYPE token,” he added.

“Hyperion DeFi has quickly established five distinct business lines that utilize the HYPE token and onchain infrastructure to generate revenue, moving well beyond a simple buy-and-hold model,” Jung added.

Other treasuries, like Tom Lee's BitMine, have made efforts to generate revenue by staking Ethereum.

The Peter Thiel-backed ETHZilla, on the other hand, appears to have abandoned its DAT playbook in favor of trying to grow its RWA tokenization business, while the David Beckham-backed Prenetics Global halted its Bitcoin DAT strategy right before the end of the year.

Regulatory clarity and institutional tailwinds

All three executives expect institutional adoption of digital assets to continue growing in 2026, a trend they believe should support higher prices. Passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in the U.S., specifically, would likely fuel added institutional investment into digital assets, according to Rudick.

“We are supremely bullish on Solana as finance continues to move onchain, especially with a major catalyst in the potential passage of the Clarity Act,” he said.

The Clarity Act is bipartisan legislation designed to establish a regulatory framework for crypto, clarifying jurisdiction between the SEC and the CFTC. Supporters argue that the added certainty it provides could unlock institutional capital.

Jung added that regulatory clarity will encourage traditional financial institutions to move existing products onchain, providing tailwinds for digital assets writ large.

“Crypto is finally having its institutional adoption moment,” Jung said. “As more real-world assets become tokenized, the core blockchain infrastructure supporting that shift will have significantly greater value-accrual opportunities.”

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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• Covered calls gained traction as cash-and-carry returns collapsed, but data shows they are not structurally suppressing Bitcoin’s price.

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As Bitcoin (BTC) price entered a downtrend in November, traders began forming theories about why institutional inflows and corporate accumulation failed to sustain price levels above $110,000.

One explanation frequently cited is the rising demand for Bitcoin options, particularly those linked to the BlackRock iShares spot Bitcoin (IBIT) exchange-traded fund.

Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of the Ethereum blockchain, said decentralization applications (DApps) could mitigate failures in internet infrastructure, such as when internet services provider Cloudflare experienced a massive outage in November.

In a Thursday X post, Buterin said Ethereum needed to do more to achieve its mission of “[building] the world computer that serves as a central infrastructure piece of a more free and open internet.” According to the co-founder, that started with DApps that “run without fraud, censorship or third-party interference” and are usable at scale on the blockchain.

“Applications where if you're a user, you don't even notice if Cloudflare goes down - or even if all of Cloudflare gets hacked by North Korea,” said Buterin. “Applications whose stability transcends the rise and fall of companies, ideologies and political parties. And applications that protect your privacy. All this - for finance, and also for identity, governance and whatever other civilizational infrastructure people want to build.”

Turkmenistan, a small country with about 7.6 million people and very limited control over the internet, has officially legalized cryptocurrency mining and exchanges since January 2026.

The decision is aimed at attracting fresh investment and reducing dependence on gas exports, while keeping tight rules on who can operate and how crypto can be used.

Turkmenistan Passes New Crypto Law For Mining & Exchanges

On November 28, 2025, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed the Law on Virtual Assets, which officially came into force on January 1, 2026.

Under this law, only registered companies and approved entrepreneurs are allowed to mine cryptocurrencies or operate crypto exchanges. This is not an open market. Every business must obtain a license before starting, and all activities will be closely monitored by the government.

Several state bodies, including the Central Bank, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the Ministry of Finance and Economy, will oversee the sector. Regular checks will be carried out to make sure companies follow the rules.

Mining and Exchanges Under Tight Control

Crypto mining is now legal only for approved operators. Any hidden or unlicensed mining remains illegal and could lead to penalties. This rule is especially strict given the country’s controlled digital environment.

Exchanges must also operate under strict rules. They can offer crypto trading services, but only within the framework set by regulators. Taxes must be paid, and crypto cannot be used for illegal activities.

What Is Allowed, And What Is Not

The new law clearly states that cryptocurrencies will not be treated as legal tender. This means crypto cannot be used for everyday payments, salaries, or official transactions. 

Instead, digital assets are classified as digital property that people can legally own, hold, and trade under regulated conditions.

Licensed crypto firms must follow strong anti-money laundering rules, store most assets in cold wallets, and report activity to regulators. Any unlicensed mining or exchange activity is strictly banned. Authorities also have the power to suspend or cancel licenses if rules are broken.

How This Affects Crypto Use in Turkmenistan

While nearby countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan already have clear crypto rules, Turkmenistan is taking a different path. Instead of banning crypto, it is choosing a tightly controlled and regulated approach.

Even though crypto trading and holding are still very limited today, this new law slowly opens the door for adoption under strict government rules.

Bitcoin’s short-term price action is still without bullish momentum, and according to macroeconomist Henrik Zeberg, the longer-term outlook may be deteriorating as well. 

Henrik Zeberg shared a strongly bearish assessment of the market’s current structure in a post on the social media platform X with the conclusion that Bitcoin is no longer behaving like an asset in a healthy expansion phase. Instead, he described Bitcoin as approaching an important peak, warning that the current structure carries an elevated risk of a sharp downside move once that peak is in place.

Bitcoin’s Expanding Diagonal Points To Price Top

Zeberg’s Bitcoin outlook is based on the expanding diagonal structure on Bitcoin’s monthly candlestick timeframe chart. This long-term pattern, which has been playing out since Bitcoin’s creation, shows increasing volatility, with the Bitcoin price making higher highs and lower lows with a widening range. 

According to the chart he shared, Bitcoin appears to be completing the final stages of this structure, and this is expected to be characterized by exhaustion. Zeberg labels the current zone as a topping area, where upside progress becomes increasingly unstable even if the price continues to increase.

Interestingly, the chart projected a final surge as a blow-off top that could carry Bitcoin to the mid-$150,000 range. However, in this framework, that final push is not a sign of strength but a hallmark of late-cycle overconfidence. Expanding diagonals tend to resolve violently once the structure breaks, and Zeberg views the current setup as looking like where optimism peaked just before a reversal.

From Euphoria To A Deep Crash Scenario

Zeberg’s most controversial claims are in his projected downside targets. According to him, once the final euphoric rally plays out and Bitcoin reaches above $150,000, it could enter into a collapse on a scale that most Bitcoin investors currently consider unthinkable. 

He compared the setup to the dot-com era, when the Nasdaq fell by more than 80%, and noted that Bitcoin has historically amplified both upside and downside moves. Based on that logic, he predicted a scenario where a broader AI and crypto bubble unwinds, leading to a Bitcoin price crash of about 97% or 98% from the eventual peak.

This translates into a technical minimum target between $3,000 and $4,000, with the possibility of even deeper declines. Although the final rally may be dramatic, holding through the subsequent crash could be devastating for unprepared investors.

Zeberg also highlighted momentum indicators that he believes support the bearish outlook. Bitcoin is showing what he describes as massive bearish divergence on the monthly timeframe. This is a situation where price continues to grind higher but momentum indicators such as the RSI fail to confirm those highs. 

Another indicator is the monthly MACD, which is also approaching, or already printing, a bearish crossover on the long-term chart.