Key Takeaways
- Columbia Business School lecturer Omid Malekan has blamed DATs for accelerating the crypto crash.
- DATs have emerged as the hottest crypto topic of 2025.
- The comments came as the crypto downturn continues.
A Columbia Business School lecturer has warned that Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) were the true trigger behind the ongoing crypto market slump, accusing many projects of reckless self-enrichment and value destruction.
The comments come as Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies continue to plummet, with BTC falling below $99,000 and Ethereum (ETH) hitting a four-year low.
DATs To Blame?
Omid Malekan, a lecturer at Columbia Business School and author on digital finance, said in a post on X that “any analysis of why crypto prices continue to fall needs to include DATs.”
He said these treasuries “in aggregate turned out to be a mass extraction and exit event — a reason for prices to go down.”
Malekan added that while a few exceptions existed, “dozens upon dozens were launched in a fashion likely to cause value destruction for crypto assets.”
He described many of the schemes as “get rich quick” plays, characterized by opaque presentations and “excessive use of empty buzzwords.”
DATs’ Destruction
According to Malekan, the biggest blow came when DATs provided “a mass exit event for supposedly locked tokens,” revealing that many altcoins had “far greater circulating supply than we thought.”
“Markets are a discounting mechanism,” he said, “and the easiest thing to discount is ‘more supply than anticipated.’”
He compared the situation to the end of the 2017 crypto boom, when a handful of insiders became wealthy at the expense of retail investors.
“The DAT cycle turned out similar,” Malekan wrote, “except it was a small group of crypto insiders vs all crypto investors.”
The lecturer criticized those who promoted DATs as purely beneficial, calling them “idiots who should not be taken seriously ever again.”
“Raising too much money and minting too many tokens, even if they are ‘locked’ or for ‘ecosystem growth,’ is the gangrene of crypto,” he added.
Treasury Boom
Beginning with Michael Saylor’s famous Bitcoin bet at MicroStrategy back in 2020, DATs have matured into a widespread shift in how companies manage capital.
In 2025, DATs have emerged as the hottest crypto topic, with public entities holding around $30 billion worth of crypto.
Many DAT vehicles offering traditional investors a backdoor into crypto exposure without needing to hold tokens themselves.
By the third quarter of 2025, corporate entities collectively controlled about 1.13 million BTC, roughly 5% of total supply.
On top of this, companies held $17.7 billion in Ethereum and $3.1 billion in Solana.
Are DATs the New Crypto ETFs?
Crypto Plummets
Bitcoin has extended its decline, deepening a sell-off that has gripped digital assets since the latest crypto crash.
The asset has fallen roughly 20% from its all-time high, trading just below $102,000 at the time of writing.
This slump marks a sharp divergence from gold, which has held near record highs even as risk assets tumble.
According to CCN analyst Valdrin Tahiri, the overall crypto market has broken below major support levels, signaling “the start of a potential long-term correction phase.”
On Tuesday, Tahiri warned that Bitcoin could crash to $85,000, while altcoins “could decline at an increasingly steep pace.”
“Unless bulls manage to reverse the trend, crypto traders are likely to suffer further losses throughout the year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ethereum has also been caught in the broader digital asset sell-off, falling sharply from its all-time high of $4,955 in August.
At press time, ETH was trading at $3,304, down 17% in one week.
“Overall, Ethereum’s outlook remains bearish as multiple indicators and patterns confirm a bearish trend,” Tahiri wrote.
Altcoins have suffered even steeper declines, pushing total crypto market capitalization down to $3.5 trillion, about 20% below its peak.
The Great October Crypto Crash
On Oct. 10, 2025, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 100% tariff on all Chinese imports sent shockwaves through global financial markets, and the crypto sector is still feeling the aftershocks.
The event erased more than $600 billion from total crypto market capitalization and marked the sharpest single-day decline since the 2022 bear market.
Bitcoin led the drop, plunging more than 15% intraday to around $103,000, while Ethereum fell below the key $3,500 threshold for the first time in months.
Data from CoinGlass confirmed that more than $19 billion worth of leveraged positions were liquidated within 24 hours, the largest such event in crypto history.
By Oct. 11, the market had staged only a modest rebound, with Bitcoin hovering near $108,000 and Ethereum around $3,700. But sentiment has remained fragile since.
Kurt Robson is a London-based reporter at CCN, specialising in the fast-moving worlds of crypto and emerging technology. He began his career covering local news in Cornwall after graduating from Falmouth University with First Class Honours in Journalism. There, he cut his teeth on everything from council meetings to missing swans.
He quickly rose through the ranks to become a frontline journalist at several of the UK’s leading national newspapers. Over the years, he has interviewed musicians and celebrities, reported from courtrooms and crime scenes, and secured multiple front-page exclusives.
Following the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurt shifted his focus to technology journalism—just ahead of the AI boom. With a natural curiosity and a trained eye for emerging trends, he has found a new rhythm in reporting on innovation.
At CCN, Kurt's work focuses on the cutting edge of crypto, blockchain, AI, and the evolving digital world. Drawing on his background in people-first reporting and his deep interest in disruptive tech, Kurt delivers stories that are insightful, entertaining, and human-centric.
