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ÂThe industry should be pushing for public awareness on the difference between self-custody and holding your Bitcoin with a third party.
Bitcoin treasury companies are potential honeypots for nationalization in a future where the US government is attempting to maintain its dominant role in the global order by seizing BTC amid the US dollar being dropped as the world’s reserve currency.
Bitcoin treasury companies hold Bitcoin in their treasury as a reserve asset. Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy was the first company to pursue the strategy.
Data shows public companies are in possession of one million Bitcoin companies as of mid-2025.
Discussions around Bitcoin treasury companies rarely mention financial sovereignty. Bitcoin has generally been used by companies as a means to leverage BTC and boost stock prices.
For instance, the Charles Schwab analysis of these companies offer investors a novel way to gain exposure to crypto while diversifying corporate balance sheets, but does not mention financial sovereignty.
Schwab wrote, “Strategy made its commitment to cryptocurrency in 2020 and helped create the framework for Bitcoin treasury-holding companies, which can offer another way for investors to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies.”
Instead of empowering individuals to feel confident holding Bitcoin in a cold wallet, we are giving them easy options in which they do not hold their own private keys.
On the contrary, Bitcoin has largely been viewed specially by its early adopters as having the potential to separate money from the state.
Whether treasury companies are a tool for liberty has yet to be seen.
Early Bitcoin adopters such as Adam Back herald Bitcoin treasury companies as bolstering Bitcoin’s role as a global store of value independent of the state.
This thesis is unlikely to play out. Bitcoin treasury companies instead are tentacles of the state in a way.
They have gone public. Accountants and lawyers answer to regulators and often exercise a lot of power alongside executives within the corporate structure.
The truth is simple Bitcoin treasury companies cannot operate independently of the state. They are the main targets of government scrutiny, which makes them candidates for a nationalization push.
The state could easily consider corporate Bitcoin holdings as a threat to fiat currency.
Central banks 90% of them, according to the International Monetary Fund are developing CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) to preclude the need for Bitcoin as a reserve asset, suggesting governments already see Bitcoin as a threat.
If Bitcoin unseats fiat currencies, Bitcoin treasury companies could be nationalized, in which states confiscate corporate assets.
There is precedent for such an action the 1933 US Executive Order 6102 required citizens to turn in their gold to the government.
Moreover, the US government has nationalized companies in the past.
During World War I and II, the government nationalized railroads, telegraph lines and other industries in order to support war efforts.
The US Railroad Administration nationalized railroads between 1917 and 1920.
During World War II, coal mines, steel mills and even retailer Montgomery Ward were seized to ensure continued production and prevent disruptions.
Montgomery Ward might have been a Bitcoin treasury company if it were under the same leadership as it was at the time of its nationalization.
Sewell Avery was the chairman of Montgomery Ward. He refused to comply with the labor union and the War Labor Board’s demands.
“To hell with the government,” Avery reportedly yelled in April 1944 when Attorney General Francis Biddle confronted him. “I want none of your damned advice.”
Avery sounds like a Bitcoiner.
The government has also taken over numerous financial institutions. In 1984, the government took an 80 percent interest in Continental Illinois Bank, which was considered ‘too big to fail.’
During the 1989 Savings and Loan Crisis, the government set up the Resolution Trust Corporation to manage more than 1,000 failed savings and loan institutions.
This cost the government more than $125 billion over six years.
In the 2008-2009 financial crisis, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed under federal conservatorship in 2008.
The US government acquired a 60% stake in General Motors in a bankruptcy agreement. Canada took another 12.5%.
The Trump Administration has de facto nationalized US steel by retaining significant control over business activities.
A considerable share of the US public is pro-nationalization. Activists and policy experts have supported nationalizing fossil fuel companies to combat climate change.
The nationalization of healthcare has been spearheaded by mainstream politicians like Bernie Sanders amid 63% of Americans calling for a nationalized system in 2020.
Due to these reasons, Bitcoin treasury companies are honeypots for state nationalization nd that’s why these companies have nothing on Bitcoin self-custody.
Kadan Stadelmann is the chief technology officer of Komodo Platform. He is a blockchain developer and operations security expert with experience ranging from working in operations security in the government sector and launching technology startups to application development and cryptography.
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