Digital asset treasury companies are fast becoming one of the defining crypto narratives of 2025. But their long term survival will depend less on hype and more on how well they manage capital, volatility and real world business operations, according to Solmate CEO Marco Santori.

Speaking on the Chain Reaction X show, Santori said companies that simply hold tokens on their balance sheets face structural risks if they lack sustainable revenue models. Without operating businesses to offset market swings, these firms can be left exposed to what he described as an mNAV roller coaster.

The rise of digital asset treasury firms

Digital asset treasury or DAT companies raise capital through equity markets and use that money to buy and hold cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether or Solana. Investors often value these firms using a multiple to net asset value metric, comparing the company’s market capitalization with the value of the tokens it holds.

According to Santori, DATs trading at a premium to their net asset value gain a powerful advantage. When market cap exceeds the value of token holdings, companies can issue new shares, use the proceeds to buy more crypto and increase overall net asset value. As long as the premium holds, the model feeds itself.

“That is how a lot of these treasury companies survive,” Santori said, adding that the pure play treasury model does have a future under the right conditions.

Why pure play treasuries face volatility

The problem arises when enthusiasm for the underlying token fades. Falling token prices tend to compress mNAV multiples, limiting a company’s ability to raise capital efficiently.

When that happens, treasury companies can become stuck. They cannot issue shares without diluting investors, and growth stalls. Santori said this leaves shareholders exposed to sharp swings driven entirely by market sentiment.

“That means a lot of the treasury companies are kind of idle because they cannot grow effectively,” he said. “I did not want our investors riding an mNAV roller coaster.”

This risk is particularly acute for firms that do nothing beyond holding tokens. Without revenue streams, their fortunes rise and fall purely with the crypto market.

Solmate’s validator driven alternative

Solmate has taken a different approach. Rather than operating as a pure play treasury, the company is building revenue generating infrastructure within the Solana ecosystem.

Santori, who previously helped establish the DeFi Development Fund’s Solana treasury, said those early experiences shaped Solmate’s strategy. The company is leaning heavily into a bare metal server model to support validator operations and high performance blockchain services.

Bare metal servers are dedicated physical machines that offer full access to hardware, unlike virtual servers that share resources. This makes them well suited for latency sensitive applications such as blockchain validation and trading infrastructure.

Infrastructure as a revenue engine

Proof of stake networks like Solana and Ethereum allow token holders to do more than just earn staking rewards. Validators also participate in governance and transaction ordering, roles that require robust hardware and constant uptime.

“To do that, you need real infrastructure,” Santori said. “You need bare metal and you need to be able to offer services on top of your validator.”

In Solana’s high throughput environment, this opens the door to premium services. Santori pointed to hedge funds and trading firms that are willing to pay for low latency access to exchanges, often achieved through co-location and high performance hardware.

Solmate aims to meet that demand by running validators loaded with large amounts of SOL on bare metal servers. Being selected as a leader more often during network epochs allows the company to validate and order more transactions, generating steady cash flow.

That revenue is then recycled back into buying SOL, creating what Santori calls an infrastructure flywheel that links operations with treasury growth.

A major acquisition to scale the model

In December 2025, Solmate announced the acquisition of RockawayX’s operations, including validator infrastructure, onchain liquidity businesses and its venture and credit funds. The deal created a combined entity overseeing more than $2 billion in assets under management.

The acquisition strengthens Solmate’s push toward building durable crypto infrastructure rather than relying solely on token price appreciation. For Santori, this blend of treasury exposure and operating income offers a more stable path forward for DAT companies.

As the sector matures, his message is clear. Digital asset treasuries that fail to build real businesses may struggle to survive the next downturn, while those anchored in infrastructure and services stand a better chance of lasting beyond the hype.