14th August 2025 > > DATs & selling alts.

tl;dr

The simple mechanics of DATs. My approach to consolidating your alt gains.

Market Snap 

Market Wrap

A new ATH overnight for BTC at $124.5k is very welcome to see, though I must admit I am slightly disappointed we are not now marching onto $130k with ETH over $5k. However, all eyes on Friday. There is a very good chance that agreement is reached over Ukraine. Trump has given Putin the carrot (rare earths in Ukraine and Alaska), and the stick (dire economic consequences for Russia if there is no agreement). I don’t think this is a buy the rumour, sell the news type event. I think it is a buy the rumour, buy the news event.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – DATs

Pantera Capital has invested $300mm into DATs, and has explained why in an open letter:

https://panteracapital.com/blockchain-letter/dat-value-creation/

The argument is really rather simple:

“Our investment thesis for Digital Asset Treasury companies (DATs) is grounded in a simple premise.

DATs can generate yield to grow net asset value per share, resulting in more underlying token ownership over time than just holding spot.

Therefore, owning a DAT could offer higher return potential compared to holding tokens directly or through an ETF.”

To understand how that is the case, let’s take one very simple example.

All investment trust-type vehicles trade at either a discount or a premium (usually a discount) to NAV (net asset value). DATs trade at a premium. Let us suppose that MSTR stock is trading at 2x the value of the BTC it holds per share. It can issue shares to buy more BTC. Because of the premium, new shareholders are receiving 0.5 BTC for every 1.0 BTC bought by the company, thus rewarding existing shareholders with the other 0.5 BTC. This is what Michael Saylor means when he talks about the BTC yield.

Why would anyone do that trade? To a certain extent, the sooner you get in (Dec 31^st 2020 for the first investment at $39 for the CC Treasury, a handy little 10x in less than five years) the more you will benefit from this arbitrage. The longer you leave it, the more money you leave on the table. Also, MSTR shares are traded on NASDAQ, they are in several indices, and there is virtually no regulatory reason why any pool of investment monies would be prevented from getting involved. This Daddy of the DATs is a no-brainer, though that is clearly not investment advice.

Blockworks Inc. handily demonstrates the ever-growing importance of the DATs:

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Altseason

I remain sceptical that we are in the foothills of altseason – I think it is still some way off. However, for those of you (and that is literally everyone in this room I assume) who have been practising DCA in the stronger alts since the depths of the last crypto winter, it is not a bad time to take some chips off the table, especially as your bag is growing so much, and oh so quickly right now.

There is only one right way to play the alt game. The golden rule is that before you even start buying, you set your parameters for selling. These likely look something like this:

20% of notional at $x.

10% of notional at $y.

And so on, until 70% - 80% has been sold leaving the obligatory moon bag, which is the really exciting bit.

With the sell targets in place, buying using DCA progresses until market prices are maybe 20% below the first sell price. At this point, your hard work will start to pay off. Your commitment during the crypto winter, when mostly everyone else was being a scaredy cat, looks and is the smart move.

I assume – because this is happening to me – that some of those sell targets are now being reached. The pivot out of alts back into fiat is just beginning for us, selling stuff that we bought so cheaply to new entrants.

Key to the successful rotation out of alts (never sell BTC, and probably never sell ETH, or perhaps just some) is not to mess with your selling plan. It would be easy to look at it, and raise the targets out of sheer greed. But stop yourself from doing that – remember that back in the crypto winter you were not entirely convinced your sell plan was aggressive enough. Leave it as it is, unless you have some specific and material new information.

And you must leave orders on exchanges for at least the first few price targets for every single alt. Prices move quickly – you do not want to miss one of your sells today because you were a little tardy.

…

The science of setting the sell plan is mostly anything but science, except in one important regard – the concept of repayment notional.

This concept is not difficult to understand. It is a measurement of what percentage of the bought notional needs to be sold and at what price to repay the investment. A simple example should suffice.

If you bought 100 of coin A at $1, and sold 25 at $4, your investment has been repaid, and the remaining 75 coins are owned at zero cost. That is an amazingly powerful position to be in, and one which is not available to TradFi investors except perhaps in technology stocks.

Clearly, every time a new DCA trade is executed, the cost base changes. Your calculation of the repayment notional based upon your detailed selling plan changes with each new DCA buy. If you organise your trades carefully in a spreadsheet, and update accurately, it becomes a joy to monitor the repayment notional for each and every alt.

….

What should you target as the repayment notional? There is no right or wrong answer, though I would suggest that 50% is the absolute upper limit. Getting it down to 10% is really good work. Between 15% and 30% is pretty acceptable.

I know I said earlier that you should never change your selling plan, but sometimes it is justified when looking at your repayment notional. If it goes very low, you need to think about some cheaper offers. If it goes above 50%, and the corresponding increase you must make to your offers to get it below 50% again looks unrealistic as a target, that might suggest dumping the lot and moving onto something else.

As of today, the CC Treasury is in a healthy position. Following some early sells, these alts have already achieved the corresponding repayment notional:

DOGE – 17%

LINK – 14%

HYPE – 14%

IOTA – 15%

BONK – 50%

COW – 38%

SNEK – 24%.

The remaining holdings of all those coins are owned at zero cost or, if any more has been sold, the resulting income is sweet as a nut pure profit. Rachel from complaints, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, must surely be pleased with my work, giving her extra dosh to pay to train drivers who understandably struggle to survive on six-figure salaries.

If there is a major correction, I have a buying plan in place with new money, but I fear I will not get the chance to execute it. The die has already been cast.

There are a bunch more alts which I am hopeful will start trading soon. XRP is mere cents away from achieving a 12% repayment notional. I am particularly proud of that one.

So, go away now, look at your sell ladders, and calculate your repayment notional per alt. You might be surprised at what you find. Anyone trading alts who does not know on a daily basis the repayment notional per alt, should sell up and find something more productive to do instead.