Retail Investors Lost $17B, Overpaid $20B on Bitcoin

A 10x Research report estimates retail investors have lost roughly $17 billion buying shares of publicly traded Bitcoin treasury (DAT) companies, and says investors collectively overpaid about $20 billion when share prices traded at lofty premiums to net asset value (NAV). Many of these firms issued stock well above the value of their Bitcoin holdings and used the proceeds to buy more BTC, creating “paper wealth” that evaporated as Bitcoin momentum cooled and NAV premiums collapsed. The resulting sell-offs sent numerous DAT stocks plunging — for example, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) fell more than 20% since August while Tokyo-based Metaplanet suffered steeper losses — dragging market-to-NAV ratios back toward parity. 10x warns the “age of financial magic” is ending and says future success will rely on trading discipline, market timing and a shift toward arbitrage-style or genuine asset-management business models rather than hype-driven treasury plays. The report notes some companies may still offer near-pure BTC exposure or upside if they trade at or below NAV, but it cautions retail investors to prefer direct Bitcoin exposure over indirect proxy bets.