Smarter Web Targets Distressed Rivals as UK Bitcoin Treasury Race Intensifies
UK fintechs scramble for Bitcoin dominance as treasury strategies become make-or-break.
The Bitcoin Arms Race Heats Up
Smarter Web circles struggling competitors—acquisition talks accelerate as corporate Bitcoin holdings become the ultimate status symbol. Rivals bleed cash while Bitcoin-heavy balance sheets outperform traditional investments.
Corporate Treasury Wars
British companies now treat Bitcoin reserves like nuclear weapons—everyone wants them but nobody wants to be first to use them in earnings reports. Traditional asset managers sweat as digital treasury strategies deliver triple-digit returns while their bond portfolios nap.
Regulatory Gambit
The FSA watches from sidelines—too slow to regulate, too proud to admit Bitcoin’s outperforming their pension fund recommendations. Meanwhile, savvy tech firms bypass traditional banking channels entirely.
Market Darwinism
Weak hands fold while Bitcoin-maximalist companies thrive. Another quarter, another reminder that holding government bonds is just politely donating money to inflation.
Navigating a high-stakes battlefield
Smarter Web’s stock performance has starkly decoupled from the asset it holds. While bitcoin declined just over 4% in the past month, the company’s share price plummeted approximately 35.5%, including a nearly 22% single-day drop on Friday.
The significant underperformance highlights a critical vulnerability: investor sentiment toward treasury vehicles is becoming increasingly fragile, independent of Bitcoin’s own price action.
The timing of Webley’s maneuver aligns with a sobering warning from Coinbase researchers that the sector is entering a brutal “player vs player” stage. Head of research David Duong and researcher Colin Basco recently stated that crypto-buying public companies will now compete far more fiercely for investor capital.
They predict that while a handful of “strategically positioned players will thrive,” the market segment is quickly becoming oversaturated, implying many of these treasuries will not survive long term.
Meanwhile, back in June, analysts at Standard Chartered, led by Geoffrey Kendrick, issued a prescient warning about the inherent risks of the Bitcoin treasury model. Kendrick cautioned that the premium at which these companies trade relative to their underlying BTC holdings is unsustainable, especially as access to Bitcoin through regulated ETFs and ETNs becomes easier. He ominously suggested that a drop below $90,000 could put half of all Bitcoin treasury companies underwater on their holdings.
