Corporate Bitcoin Buying Spree: Public Companies Outpace ETFs 2:1 in H1 2025

Wall Street's playing catch-up while corporate treasuries go full crypto degen.

The institutional FOMO is real—but who's really driving demand?

Public companies just vacuumed up twice as much BTC as all ETFs combined this year. Not exactly what the 'institutional adoption' crowd predicted when spot ETFs launched.

Balance sheets > brokerage accounts

Turns out Fortune 500 CFOs have bigger diamond hands than your average ETF investor. Probably helps when you're playing with shareholder money instead of your own.

The cynical take: Nothing boosts corporate earnings like speculative asset gambling—especially when you can mark-to-moon during quarterly reports. Just don't ask about the tax implications.

Entities Holding BitcoinEntities Holding Bitcoin Past data shows that there were only 67 firms with bitcoin on their balance sheet at the start of the year and 79 companies by the end of the first quarter. This indicates a 141% and 78% increase in the past six and three months, respectively. New Participants Trim Strategy’s Share Previously, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) accounted for a large number of bitcoins acquired by public firms. The current data highlights a changing tide as new participants step up to compete for who holds more. In the first half of 2024, Strategy’s 37,190 BTC acquisition accounted for a staggering 72% of all corporate firm purchases. However, while the Michael Saylor-chaired business intelligence company purchased 135,600 BTC in H1, its contribution has dropped to 55% despite increasing its purchase figures. This share trim follows the entrance of new heavyweights like Metaplanet, GameStop, and ProCap, who have acquired billions worth of Bitcoin. Remarkably, Saylor does not view this emergence as a competition but rather as a complement to the greater good of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Moreover, market observers believe that these increased purchases, alongside the resurgence of Bitcoin spot ETFs, could trigger a supply shock. Lightspark CEO David Marcus asserted that things are going to get wild for Bitcoin from here, citing increased institutional adoption, dwindling supply due to halving events, and the limited amount of BTC left to be mined.