At BTC Asia in Hong Kong, Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) firms—companies that place bitcoin directly on their balance sheets—took center stage. Yet Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-Founder of Hex Trust, urged caution, arguing that not all approaches are created equal.
Quaglini praised the role of corporate treasuries in broadening bitcoin’s reach. “It’s great for adoption. Investors worldwide can now gain indirect exposure through listed companies on exchanges like Nasdaq,” he told CoinDesk.
But he drew a clear line between responsible diversification and pure financial engineering. “If a company exists solely to hold crypto, then it’s effectively a publicly traded hedge fund,” he said.
The bigger risk, Quaglini warned, comes from leverage. Galaxy data shows loan volumes at their highest since 2022, alongside a $1 billion liquidation wave. Regulators in South Korea have already intervened, halting new lending products as concerns over systemic stress grow. “If these firms borrow heavily to buy bitcoin, they expose markets to forced selling spirals and increased volatility,” he noted.
Still, Quaglini sees the current crop of DATs as a stepping stone. The true test, he said, will come when cash-rich giants like Apple or Google allocate reserves to bitcoin. “That shift would be transformative,” he emphasized, suggesting that only when the largest corporates move in will the model prove its long-term value.
