There is a stark symmetry to all cryptocurrency booms. Ideas born of freedom are eventually packaged, securitized, and sold back to the masses, this time at a hefty premium. A new report from 10XResearch claims that retail investors have collectively lost $17 billion trying to gain exposure to Bitcoin indirectly through publicly traded “digital asset treasury” companies such as Metaplanet and Strategy.
10X Research Report Explains Great Agency Trading
The logic made sense on paper. Why bother managing a private wallet or avoiding the inefficiencies of ETFs when you can just buy shares in the companies that own Bitcoin itself? Strategy has turned this “strategy” into something like a cult strategy. They sparked a wave of corporate imitators from Tokyo to Toronto.
By mid-2025, dozens of small- and mid-cap stock “Bitcoin treasury bonds” had emerged. Some of them were genuine, while others were opportunistic, marketing themselves as pure agents aiming to drive Bitcoin higher.
However, there was one fatal flaw: fluctuations in ratings. 10X Research points out that at the height of the stock market rally, these stocks had unusually high equity premiums. In some cases, companies were trading for 40-50% more than the net value of Bitcoin per share. This was driven by the enthusiasm of momentum traders and retailers, not the underlying asset. According to Bloomberg, it soon stopped being an exposure to Bitcoin and became an exposure to crowd psychology.
When insurance premiums match reality
The impact on these government bonds was magnified as Bitcoin corrected by 13% in October. Stock prices didn't just follow Bitcoin's decline. They cratered, wiping out paper assets at more than twice the rate of decline of the underlying assets. Strategy is down nearly 35% from its recent highs, and Metaplanet has plummeted more than 50%, erasing most of its speculative gains over the summer.
For late-entry retail holders, the drawdown wasn't just painful. It was devastating. 10X Research estimates that retail portfolios focused on government bonds in digital assets have lost a total of approximately $17 billion since August. This was mainly concentrated among unhedged retail investors in the US, Japan and Europe.
Psychology of secondary speculation
There's an irony here. Bitcoin was designed as a self-sovereign asset outside of the oversight of financial intermediaries. But as Bitcoin became institutionalized, retail investors returned to familiar territory and began buying other people's versions of Bitcoin through public equity.
These agents were wrapped in a glossy narrative of “corporate mantra” with charismatic CEOs and open source branding. In reality, they turned out to be Bitcoin-based use of corporate balance sheets. A risky bet in an environment of tight liquidity.
These proxy trades were unwound with surgical precision when macro headwinds from Washington and China triggered the latest wave of deleveraging. They attacked the same investors who believed they had found a smarter way to HODL.
painful memories
There is little solace in this number. But for those watching Bitcoin's cyclical dance between innovation and euphoria, the lesson holds. The closer the edge of a cryptocurrency is to traditional markets, the more of its distortions it will inherit. Owning an idea through a company that monetizes it may be convenient, even exciting, but convenience comes at a price.
As 10X Research frankly states, the equity wrapper around a digital asset is not a replacement for the asset itself. In this chapter of the Bitcoin story, the difference has already cost retail investors 17 billion in reminding themselves why diversification was so attractive in the first place.
