Crypto Treasury Risks Echo 2008 Financial Crisis: Expert
Crypto Treasury Firms Introduce Counterparty Risks
Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto treasury strategies, while seemingly straightforward, introduce risks reminiscent of the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. This perspective comes from Josip Rupena, CEO of lending platform Milo and a former Goldman Sachs analyst, in a conversation with Cointelegraph.
Rupena argues that these firms, by holding digital assets, introduce layers of risk not inherent in the underlying assets themselves. These risks include:
- Management Competence: The ability of the corporate management team to make sound financial decisions.
- Cybersecurity: The ever-present threat of hacks and theft.
- Cash Flow Generation: The business's capacity to generate sufficient revenue.
He noted:
“There's this aspect where people take what is a pretty sound product, a mortgage back in the day or Bitcoin and other digital assets today, for example, and they start to engineer them, taking them down a direction where the investor is unsure about the exposure they’re getting.”While Rupena doesn't foresee crypto treasury companies triggering a bear market, he suggests that overleveraged firms could amplify a downturn through forced selling of assets. The exact magnitude of this effect remains to be seen.
Several analysts have cautioned that overextended crypto treasury firms could trigger market-wide contagion if forced to sell assets to cover debts, potentially depressing prices.
Altcoin Diversification Adds Complexity
Beyond Bitcoin, some companies are now diversifying their crypto holdings into altcoins such as Toncoin (TON), XRP, Dogecoin (DOGE), and Solana (SOL).
This diversification strategy has yielded mixed results. For example, Safety Shot, a beverage company, saw its stock price plummet by 50% after announcing BONK memecoin as its primary reserve asset.
Similarly, many Bitcoin treasury firms have experienced share price declines in the latter half of 2025, potentially signaling increasing market saturation and investor concern.