Satsuma Technology shareholders have voted by more than 90% to liquidate the company’s entire 668 BTC position, roughly $43.5M, and cancel its London Stock Exchange listing. Launched less than a year ago on $218M in fresh capital, the British Bitcoin treasury is shutting down over a discount that left its stock worth less than the bitcoin on its own balance sheet. The vote marks one of the first full unwinds of a listed Digital Asset Treasury, and it overrode the majority of its own board. It also lands inside a wider wave of treasuries selling, repaying debt or pivoting away.
Key Takeaways
- Satsuma sells its 668 BTC ($43.5M) and exits London after a vote above 90%
- A discount to net asset value made the stock a weaker vehicle than the BTC it held
- Sequans, Nakamoto, Empery and Smarter Web are selling too: the DAT model is under strain
Satsuma Winds Down 668 BTC and a Bet Raised at $218M
The vote left no room for doubt. More than 90% of shareholders approved the sale of all 668 BTC, a position valued near $43.5M, and the cancellation of the London Stock Exchange listing. Four of the six directors opposed the move and two backed the shareholders, who overrode the board majority outright.
The story started with momentum. The company raised £163.6 million, or $218M, in August 2025 in a round led by ParaFi Capital alongside Pantera, Digital Currency Group and Kraken. It then hired Mark Moss as Chief Bitcoin Strategist and traded near £14 per share, for a market cap around £66 million at its June 2025 peak.
What followed was a slow disintegration. The CFO left in February 2026 and the CEO followed in March. Satsuma had already sold 579 BTC in December 2025 for £40 million, and its stock had lost 99% of its value by April 2026. The contrast is sharp with a treasury like Metaplanet, which kept stacking bitcoin to push past 43,000 BTC.
The playbook Satsuma copied was popularized by Michael Saylor, right up until Strategy buried its own « Never Sell » doctrine. For Satsuma, only an exit timetable is left. High Court hearings are set across August and September 2026, delisting is expected in mid-September, and shareholder payments are due by late September, with an estimated return of £26.8 to £30 million after wind-down costs.
How a Discount to Net Asset Value Sinks a Bitcoin Treasury
The mechanism that killed Satsuma is easy to state. Once a treasury’s market cap sits durably below the value of the bitcoin on its balance sheet, owning the stock becomes strictly worse than owning the coin. That is exactly the argument Pantera, holding roughly 6.7% of the stock, made publicly from April 2026 as it pushed for a full liquidation.
Debt did the rest. Large structures can absorb the shock: MSTR retired $1.5 billion in convertible debt without selling a single bitcoin. A small, recently listed treasury has no such luxury. With no easy access to capital markets and a stock on the floor, the only adjustment variable becomes the asset itself, meaning the bitcoin.
In the short term, holders recover scraps. The stock traded at fractions of a penny before the vote, and the expected return is measured in tens of millions of pounds, far below the $218M mobilized at the start. Not every treasury is on that slope: Adam Back’s Capital B kept buying BTC to pull France into the top tier.
The Satsuma case draws a dividing line. On one side, treasuries able to manage their liabilities and hold through the discount. On the other, vehicles built in a hurry during the 2025 rush, with no debt cushion or balance-sheet discipline, that get trapped the moment price and premium turn together.
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From Sequans to Nakamoto, the DAT Model Cracks in Sequence
Satsuma is not an isolated case. Sequans Communications first sold 1,025 BTC, then disposed of nearly 80% of its remaining holdings to repay convertible debt, with a plan to monetize the last 658 BTC. Smarter Web Company sold 178 BTC to clear a convertible debt instrument.
The pattern repeats elsewhere. Nakamoto, whose stock has fallen 99% since its May 2025 SPAC deal, sold about 284 BTC for $20M in working capital, while roughly 70% of its remaining 5,342 BTC is pledged against a Kraken loan maturing in December. Empery Digital sold almost half its bitcoin to fund buybacks and debt repayment.
Even the big names are moving. Strategy recently sold around 3,620 BTC while remaining, by far, the largest public holder with more than 840,000 BTC. Jack Mallers stepped down as CEO of Twenty One Capital, Adam Back’s Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company saw its proposed merger fail, and miners like Bitdeer and MARA are selling bitcoin to fund AI infrastructure pivots. The broader shift echoes the dozens of crypto projects that shut down in 2026 despite comfortable raises.
The market backdrop explains the pivot. Bitcoin trades around $64,033, roughly 50% below its October 2025 peak of $126,000. As long as price stays far from its records, the premium the market once granted these listed shells evaporates, and the DAT model is now judged case by case, on balance-sheet strength rather than on the promise of accumulation.
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