The chief investment officer of Strive, Inc. warned on Monday that an extended Bitcoin price downturn could push overleveraged corporate treasury companies toward forced consolidation, with firms that relied on convertible debt financing facing the sharpest pressure. "Prolonged bitcoin weakness could increase pressure on treasury companies that relied heavily on convertible debt financing," Ben Werkman told The Block.

Werkman serves as CIO at Strive (NASDAQ: ASST), the product of a merger between Strive Asset Management, co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, and Asset Entities. Strive describes itself as the first publicly traded asset management Bitcoin treasury company. Werkman brings considerable sector experience to the warning: before joining Strive, he served as CIO at Swan Bitcoin, founded NumerisX (a boutique Bitcoin treasury advisory firm), and spent nine years at KPMG in governance and corporate strategy. His comments come as Bitcoin trades around $66,521, well off its all-time high of approximately $126,000 set last October.

Bitcoin briefly fell to $59,099 in early June, its lowest point since October 2024, before recovering partially. The asset is also down roughly 37% compared to a year ago. Those figures matter because more than 140 publicly listed companies built their treasury strategies around buying Bitcoin at prices closer to or above current levels, often using borrowed money to do it.

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The Convertible Debt Problem

The mechanism behind Werkman's concern is straightforward. Many smaller Bitcoin treasury companies, often called Digital Asset Treasury Companies or DATCos, raised capital through convertible notes or private placements to buy Bitcoin. When Bitcoin rises, those bets pay off and the debt can be converted to equity or repaid easily. When Bitcoin falls, the collateral shrinks while the debt obligations stay fixed. Without operating revenue to cover the gap, some companies face a path toward forced asset sales or bankruptcy, which can depress Bitcoin prices further and create additional pressure on peers.

That cycle is already showing up in stock prices. Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, pioneered the corporate Bitcoin treasury model when Michael Saylor began converting MicroStrategy's cash reserves into Bitcoin in August 2020. The company once traded at a 7x premium to the value of its Bitcoin holdings but now trades at a 21% discount to net asset value (NAV). Metaplanet, the Japanese firm that drew comparisons to Strategy, dropped from a 237% premium in July 2025 to roughly 10%. Nakamoto, another treasury firm, trades at a 63% discount. At least $62 billion was erased from the combined market value of corporate Bitcoin holders during the current correction, and the top ten treasury companies reported over $10 billion in paper losses during just a single 20% price drop in February 2026. New accounting rules under FASB ASU 2023-08, which took effect for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024, now require quarterly fair-value reporting, making those swings visible and immediate.

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Strive's Positioning

Strive is presenting itself as one of the firms built to survive that environment. On May 12, 2026, CEO Matthew Cole stated that the company was "debt-free, with zero margin requirements, and zero encumbered Bitcoin," following the resolution of roughly $220 million in outstanding obligations. That figure breaks into three distinct components: $110 million in legacy debt inherited from Semler Scientific was retired with cash, a $20 million Coinbase Credit loan was repaid in cash, and $90 million in convertible notes was converted into SATA preferred stock rather than repaid. Strive replaced its former debt structure with a preferred stock instrument called SATA (Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock), which pays a 13% annualized dividend starting June 16. Under the terms of the SATA structure, as described in the company's 8-K filing, the instrument does not carry forced liquidation triggers tied to Bitcoin's price, distinguishing it from the convertible debt arrangements that Werkman identified as a pressure point across the sector.

The company holds approximately 19,000 BTC as of June 5, 2026, up from around 13,131 BTC at the end of January. Strive added more than 2,500 BTC between late May and early June at an average purchase price of about $74,092 per coin, meaning those recent purchases are currently underwater. Its January 2026 preferred stock offering was upsized after receiving more than $600 million in orders against a $150 million target, ultimately raising $225 million.

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Global Scale and Regional Implications

The broader sector now includes between 140 and 172 publicly listed companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Across all entity types, 254 organizations collectively hold roughly 3.91 million BTC, representing about 18.6% of Bitcoin's hard-capped 21 million supply. Strategy alone holds 843,738 BTC and maintains approximately $1.4 billion in cash to cover preferred dividends.

Outside the United States, the stress looks different depending on the market. In Africa, the most direct parallel is Africa Bitcoin Corporation (JSE: AFBC), which graduated to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Main Board in May 2026 and targets 21,000 BTC by 2030. The company currently holds only around 5 BTC and is still in early capital-raising mode. A risk-off environment driven by Werkman's consolidation scenario could make it harder for nascent treasury firms in emerging markets to attract institutional capital, particularly in Africa where pension funds and insurers face unclear or restrictive regulations around direct digital asset exposure. Sygnia's Bitcoin ETF, launched in South Africa in June 2025 as the country's first Bitcoin ETF, offers a regulated alternative route that may see more interest if treasury company stocks continue trading at deep discounts.

In Asia, regulatory conditions shape corporate Bitcoin strategy differently across borders. In India, a 30% flat tax on crypto gains with no loss-offset provision structurally discourages corporate balance-sheet accumulation, and no major Indian or Pakistani publicly listed company has moved toward a formal Bitcoin treasury strategy. Singapore occupies a distinct position as a hub for regional capital flows: the Monetary Authority of Singapore's stablecoin and Digital Payment Token licensing frameworks have made the city-state a preferred base for South Asian institutional capital seeking regulated digital asset exposure, and accelerated consolidation among treasury firms during a prolonged downturn could redirect a meaningful share of that capital toward Singapore-domiciled structures.

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What Comes Next

Other industry voices have echoed Werkman's consolidation view from different angles. Wojciech Kaszycki, chief strategy officer at BTCS, put it bluntly in February: "If you consolidate with another player, sometimes two plus two equals six or more. You can win faster, because everybody in this market trading below net asset value is struggling." Katherine Dowling of Bitcoin Standard Treasury told DL News that opportunistic mergers and acquisitions activity among treasury firms is likely. Bitcoin's current weakness broadly fits the historical post-halving correction pattern following the April 2024 halving, and analysts at CoinDCX and CNBC have projected a potential market bottom around October 2026. The Fear and Greed Index currently sits at 18, deep in extreme fear territory. If that timeline holds and consolidation accelerates before any recovery, analysts covering the sector suggest that firms entering the next cycle with clean balance sheets and no forced selling exposure may carry the most strategic options going forward.

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Verse Press does not provide investment advice. Market data sourced from Fortune, CNBC, CoinDesk, and SEC filings as of June 15, 2026.