If you’ve been paying attention to the crypto space in 2025, you’ve probably noticed something massive happening — billions of dollars are flooding in from traditional finance. I’m not just talking about Bitcoin and Ethereum hitting all-time highs. I’m talking about billion-dollar institutions diving headfirst into crypto infrastructure. And one of the biggest trends driving this? Digital Asset Treasuries, or DATs.
I recently explored this topic at Bitcoin Asia Hong Kong 2025, and I have to say — the shift we’re seeing right now feels like a genuine inflection point. Let me break down what’s happening and why it matters for all of us.
What Are Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs)?
Digital Asset Treasuries are publicly traded companies that buy and hold cryptocurrencies directly on their balance sheets. Instead of treating crypto as speculative side bets, these firms are making digital assets a core treasury strategy. Investors can buy shares of these companies to get indirect exposure to crypto prices without holding any tokens themselves.
The model was pioneered by Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) back in 2020, and it’s absolutely exploded since then. As of late 2025, over 200 firms — 190+ focused on Bitcoin and another 10-20 holding Ethereum or altcoins — are collectively sitting on over $464 billion in crypto assets. Strategy alone holds over $62 billion in BTC. This isn’t fringe anymore. CNBC, Galaxy Research, and Henley & Partners are all covering DATs as a legitimate capital markets trend.
The question has shifted from “why would you consider a digital asset treasury?” to “which asset, market, and strategy represent the best opportunity?” That’s a massive mindset change.
Billions Flowing In: The MultiBank Group Story
One of the most interesting examples of institutional money entering crypto is the MultiBank Group. Founded in California in 2005, this is a global financial powerhouse with over 2 million clients across 100+ countries and a daily turnover of $35 billion as of April 2025. These aren’t crypto-native numbers — this is traditional institutional finance at scale.
What caught my eye is that MultiBank signed a $3 billion real estate RWA (Real World Assets) deal to bring physical assets onto the blockchain. And that’s just the beginning — they’re planning to move approximately $10 billion of real world assets on-chain, including luxury properties like Ritz Carlton Residences and Coutura Reserve through their partnership with Mag Lifestyle.
They hold licenses in over 17 countries and have regulatory frameworks that most crypto-native companies can only dream of. When you combine that institutional credibility with blockchain technology, you get something genuinely powerful.
The Four Pillars of MultiBank’s Crypto Strategy
MultiBank is building their crypto ecosystem around four key pillars, all unified under the MBG token:
1. Multibank.io — Crypto Derivatives Exchange: Already live and functional, this regulated exchange started with crypto derivatives trading. Full KYC process, proper licensing — the kind of infrastructure that brings institutional confidence to the space.
2. MEX Exchange — Global Forex & Commodities: With a $23 billion evaluation, MEX Exchange already serves millions of institutional traders across forex, gold, and commodities. This entire ecosystem is being integrated into the crypto infrastructure, expected to come online late 2025.
3. Real World Assets (RWA) Marketplace: This is where it gets really exciting. They’re tokenizing luxury real estate, enabling fractional ownership of properties that were previously locked behind massive capital requirements. Imagine owning a fraction of a Dubai luxury condo and earning up to 8% APY. The fractionalization, 24-hour trading, and blockchain transparency make previously illiquid markets suddenly accessible to everyone.
4. MBG Token Ecosystem: The token ties everything together. It launched under a dollar and climbed to around $2.40, listed on MEXC, Gate.io, and Uniswap. The tokenomics include a buyback and burn program funded by 9% of group revenues (currently $29 million annually, growing 20% year-over-year), staking rewards, and trading fee discounts on the RWA platform.
Why This Matters for the Broader Crypto Ecosystem
Here’s what I find genuinely exciting about this trend. We’re not just seeing crypto-native projects building on top of each other anymore. We’re seeing massive traditional finance groups recognizing that blockchain infrastructure is simply better — 24-hour markets, transparent transactions, instant settlement, fractional ownership. The old system is slow, opaque, and expensive. Anyone who talks to traditional bankers knows this.
The DAT trend and institutional entries like MultiBank represent crypto and traditional finance meeting in the middle. Crypto is reaching up into institutional markets, and institutions are reaching down into crypto. That convergence point is where we are in 2025, and it’s creating enormous opportunities.
Bitcoin Asia Hong Kong 2025 really drove this home for me. The conference, held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, showcased just how seriously Asia is taking this institutional crypto convergence. Hong Kong’s regulatory clarity has made it a natural hub for these kinds of bridges between traditional and decentralized finance.
The Bottom Line
Digital Asset Treasuries aren’t just a trend — they’re becoming a fundamental part of how capital markets interact with crypto. With over $464 billion already sitting in corporate crypto treasuries and groups like MultiBank bringing billions more in real world assets on-chain, we’re watching the formation of a new global financial infrastructure in real time.
Whether you’re interested in the DAT model for indirect crypto exposure through public equities, or you’re looking at RWA tokenization for diversification, the opportunities here are real and growing fast. The institutions have arrived, and they’re not just dipping their toes in — they’re diving headfirst.
What do you think about digital asset treasuries and institutional crypto adoption? Let me know in the comments below.
Michael Gu
Michael Gu, Creator of Boxmining, stared in the Blockchain space as a Bitcoin miner in 2012. Something he immediately noticed was that accurate information is hard to come by in this space. He started Boxmining in 2017 mainly as a passion project, to educate people on digital assets and share his experiences. Being based in Asia, Michael also found a huge discrepancy between digital asset trends and knowledge gap in the West and China.