mNAV Explained: When Are Bitcoin Treasury Stocks Expensive?

Short answer: mNAV is a bitcoin treasury company's market value divided by the value of its bitcoin. At 1× the stock costs exactly its bitcoin, at 2× twice that. A treasury stock is expensive when the premium is larger than the bitcoin per share the company can add over the next few years. You have to deduct debt and preferred stock when doing the math.

You see "mNAV 0.8×" on a treasury stock and think: bitcoin at a 20% discount. Or "mNAV 2×" and wonder why anyone would pay double. Both conclusions can be wrong. Here you learn how to read mNAV, which three versions exist and which calculation tells you whether a treasury stock is expensive.

What is mNAV?

mNAV stands for "multiple of net asset value". It means: how much does the stock market pay for one euro of bitcoin sitting in the company?

The calculation has two parts. The market value is the share price times the number of shares. The value of the bitcoin is the holdings times the bitcoin price. Divide one by the other and you have the mNAV.

How treasury companies work in the first place, where their money comes from and who holds how much bitcoin is explained in the overview Bitcoin treasury companies. Here it is about the one number on which almost everything depends.

Why mNAV matters so much for treasury stocks

A treasury company wants one thing above all: more bitcoin per share. To get it, it sells new shares and buys bitcoin with the proceeds. Whether that benefits existing shareholders depends entirely on the mNAV.

• Above 1×, the company gets more bitcoin for each new share than previously stood behind one share. Bitcoin per share rises.
• Below 1×, it gets less. Each new share dilutes the old ones, and bitcoin per share falls.
• Below 1×, the opposite route tends to pay off: buying back its own shares. Metaplanet did this in October 2026.

So mNAV is not just a price tag. It is the engine of the business model. A numerical example with 1’000 BTC and 1 million shares is worked through in the treasury overview.

Three versions of mNAV

The simple mNAV compares market value with all the company's bitcoin. That is quick to calculate but overlooks two things: debt and preferred stock are paid before shareholders, and cash also belongs to the company.

Bitcoin €54.38 billion, debt €6.07 billion, preferred stock €11.86 billion, dollar reserve €4.33 billion. Sources: SEC filings and Strategy's dashboard, our own calculation.

The simple mNAV says "20% discount". The other two say "premium". The other two are right, because debt and preferred stock stand in line ahead of you. Strategy itself uses the enterprise-value version and showed 1.07× on its dashboard on the evening of Nov 12, 2026. The small difference comes from a later price and newer holdings.

And the diluted share count?

Convertible bonds can later turn into shares. If you count them as shares already today, the market value rises, and the debt drops out instead. At Capital B this makes a big difference: 38.5 million shares today, 48.0 million after conversion of all bonds. The simple mNAV of 0.93× thus becomes about 1.16× (as of Nov 13, 2026).

So always check which share count an mNAV is calculated with. Companies often give the diluted number ("fully diluted") for bitcoin per share, data sites often today's.

When is a treasury stock expensive?

A premium is not bad in itself. You pay it for the expectation that the company will grow your bitcoin per share faster than you could yourself. The only question is: for how long does it have to manage that?

The answer is a simple calculation. Imagine the mNAV eventually falls back to 1×. By then you must have gained as much more bitcoin per share as you paid in premium.

Years until the premium is earned back through more bitcoin per share. Our own calculation.

What is realistic growth? At Strategy, by our calculation, bitcoin per share grew 62% in 2024 and 18% in 2025. From January to September 2026 it shrank by 7%. If you paid a premium in 2024, you were well rewarded at first. If you paid it in mid-2025, you are still waiting.

Rule of thumb: An mNAV is expensive when you prepay more years of growth than you trust the company to deliver. At 2×, with a good 20% a year, that is almost four years.

mNAV over time: the Strategy example

Strategy shows how fast mNAV moves. The values are the simple mNAV at quarter-end, calculated from the share count and bitcoin holdings according to the SEC report and the closing prices.

Sources: Strategy 10-Q and 10-K (holdings and shares on the reference date), Yahoo Finance (closing prices), our own calculation. Shares before the August 2024 split multiplied by 10. Sats per share without convertible bonds and without deducting debt and preferred stock.

Three things stand out:

1. High mNAV, strong growth. In 2024 the mNAV was almost always above 1.5×. Strategy sold expensive shares, and sats per share rose by a good 60%.
2. The crash came faster than bitcoin's decline. In the second half of 2025 the mNAV halved before bitcoin reached its low.
3. Below 1×, bitcoin per share shrinks. In the third quarter of 2026 Strategy sold new shares below value. Sats per share fell from 227’700 to 200’900.

The company's path behind this is told in the profile Strategy stock (MSTR).

Worked example: what a falling mNAV costs

This is not theory. From Jun 30, 2025 to Dec 31, 2025, bitcoin fell 18%. Bitcoin per Strategy share rose slightly, by 1%. The mNAV fell from 1.77× to 0.81×. Together, that meant minus 62% for the stock, from $404.23 to $151.95.

How to build a direct bitcoin position over years without paying a premium, you can work out in the savings plan calculator:

Is an mNAV below 1 a bargain?

Not necessarily. A discount often has reasons the simple mNAV doesn't show:

• Senior claims. Debt and preferred stock don't belong to you. At Strategy, 0.80× becomes 1.20× net.
• Running costs. The company pays interest, dividends on preferred stock and staff from its holdings when the business isn't enough.
• No way to the value. You cannot exchange your share for the bitcoin behind it. A discount can last for years.
• Management. If the company sells new shares despite the discount, your bitcoin per share keeps falling.

One example of a long discount is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. At times in late 2022 it traded almost half below the value of its bitcoin. Only when it was converted into an ETF in January 2024 and shares could be redeemed did the gap close. What happened to its bitcoin afterwards is shown in the article Bitcoin ETF flows and holdings. Treasury companies have no such mechanism.

Below 1×, mNAV becomes a question for management: if the company buys back its own shares, bitcoin per share rises. If it keeps issuing new ones, it falls.

Which claims rank ahead of the common stock at each issuer is shown by the capital structure on the Digital Credit page. What this means for preferred stock holders is in the article Effective yield, BTC coverage and "BTC price at 1×".

mNAV of treasury companies compared

This is how the stock market valued the larger pure treasury companies on Nov 13, 2026. The mNAV is the simple version from the treasury overview; the right-hand column says what you still need to deduct or add.

As of Nov 13, 2026. Holdings according to the companies' latest announcements, values from the treasury overview. Net values for Strategy (Nov 12, 2026) and Strive (Nov 11, 2026) our own calculation. The four European companies are also compared on a net basis in the article Bitcoin treasuries in Europe.

In autumn 2026 almost all treasury stocks trade below 1× on a simple basis. That is a big change from 2024 and early 2025, when Strategy alone was valued at 1.7× to 2.1×. On a net basis, the companies with a lot of preferred capital are still above 1×. How sharply net mNAV jumps from day to day with a lot of preferred capital is shown in the profile Strive stock (ASST).

For companies with a real business, mNAV says little. Coinbase comes to 27×, Tesla to over 1’900×. There the business determines the price, not the bitcoin.

Checklist: checking mNAV properly

1. Which version? Is it market value ÷ bitcoin, or are debt and preferred stock included?
2. Which share count? Outstanding today, or diluted with all convertible bonds?
3. How old are the holdings? Some companies report monthly, others only quarterly.
4. How has bitcoin per share developed? Over one or two years, not just the last quarter.
5. How many years of growth are you prepaying? Put the net mNAV into the table above.
6. What happens below 1×? Does the company buy back shares or keep selling new ones?

The live figures for each company are on the treasury overview, and for preferred stock issuers under common shares, BTC holdings and mNAV.

Treasury stock or bitcoin directly?

A treasury stock is a package of three bets: on bitcoin, on the company's ability to grow bitcoin per share, and on the stock market's mood, which sets the mNAV. Bitcoin directly is only the first bet. Which of the three bets has paid off since 2020 is worked through with real price data in the comparison Bitcoin stock or bitcoin?.

Where bitcoin currently stands in its long-term trend is shown by the Power Law model. On Nov 12, 2026, bitcoin stood at 0.65 times the trend, just above the floor of €60’571 (CHF 55’919). The floor is a model value, not a guarantee; the calculation behind it is in the methodology.

A high mNAV in a euphoric phase doubles the risk: when bitcoin falls, the premium usually falls too. That is how it was in 2025. How to sit through such phases without panic is described in the article FOMO, panic and capitulation.