Bitcoin holders lost $ 17 billion due to overvalued cryptocurrency shares

Retail investors have lost about $ 17 billion trying to gain access to bitcoin BTC $108,622.00 Mezo Wrapped BTC 2.53% Market capitalization $36.83 million VOL. 24 hours $2.03 billion through shares of public companies that hold the cryptocurrency in their reserves. This is stated in a report by the analytical company 10X Research, cited by Bloomberg. We are talking about so-called bitcoin treasury companies, such as Metaplanet and Сейлор" href="https://noworries.news/biography/majkl-dzh-sejlor/" data-bio-id="3672">Michael Saylor 's Strategy, which buy up BTC, financing it through the issuance of their own shares.

According to the analysis, investors suffered losses due to inflated premiums to the net asset value (NAV) at which companies placed their securities. This made it possible to raise funds at a price significantly higher than the real value of existing bitcoins. The report states that new shareholders overpaid about $ 20 billion for bitcoin exposure, and retail investors themselves lost about $ 17 billion.

Following the change in market conditions, the shares of such companies fell sharply. Analysts at 10X Research stated that «the era of financial magic for Bitcoin treasury companies is coming to an end.» As an example, Metaplanet’s market capitalization grew from $ 1 billion to $ 8 billion due to the issue of shares with high premiums, but after the market correction, it fell to $ 3.1 billion. At the same time, the volume of crypto assets on the company’s balance sheet amounted to $ 3.3 billion, and shareholder losses amounted to $ 4.9 billion.

Similar dynamics are observed in Strategy, whose shares were previously traded at a premium of three to four times NAV. Currently, this figure has dropped to 1.4, indicating a decrease in investor interest. According to analysts, companies will have to change their approach — move from issuing shares to active management of crypto assets, focusing on arbitrage and risk control. This may reduce the potential for rapid growth, but ensure stable returns of 15−20% per annum.

The 10X Research report was released amid the largest wave of futures position liquidations in the history of the crypto market. On the night of October 10−11, 2025, contracts worth more than $ 19 billion were liquidated, which confirmed the vulnerability of retail investors to the volatility of digital assets.