Opinion

A Tale of Two DATs

Tom Lee and Michael Saylor are taking classic Etherean and Bitcoiner approaches to stacking their favorite assets.

Apr 18, 2026 • 2 min read

As crypto pokes its head out of crypto winter, there's a story emerging about the two dominant DATs that are influencing the market: Strategy and Bitmine.

If this crypto bear market is indeed muted compared to previous bears (knock on wood), then it will likely be credited to the fact that these two DATs brought idiosyncratic buying pressure to their respective assets that previous bear markets did not have to the same degree.

Strategy’s STRC is dominating the headlines, creating meaningful bitcoin buy pressure. Did you know Strategy has bought $7.3B of BTC in Q1 2026? Huge… that's a lot! This is being fueled by breakout sales of the STRC product, giving Saylor the extra credit line he needs to smash the market-buy button.

But at the same time… Bitmine has quietly been purchasing ETH as well.

Bitmine’s ETH reserve has grown 15% in Q1 of this year – pushing Bitmine above 4% of the total ETH supply. Unlike Strategy, however, Bitmine is doing this without debt.

I do not know of the full black magic Tom Lee somehow possesses to be able to acquire $1.4B of ETH this quarter without having to create the same massive cash obligations that cause people to worry about the MSTR common stock.

While on the surface these are both just DATs buying their respective assets, popping open the hood reveals a huge divergence in strategy.

Strategy: Issue debt, borrow from the future, buy BTC today
Bitmine: Acquire ETH (somehow?), stake it, earn $220M per year with essentially zero CapEx

Bitmine isn’t even staking all its ETH! It’s only staking about ⅔ of it – if it were to stake all of it, Bitmine would be earning ~$330M per year. This is a stark difference from Strategy's $763M of yearly cash payment obligations, which is only likely to increase given Saylor's disposition for issuing debt instruments.

I don’t really have a conclusion here, other than pointing out that these two companies are diverging pretty dramatically in the strategies they're leveraging.

The other take I have is: Saylor is doing the classic culturally Bitcoiner thing to do: Be extreme. Be maximalist. Have faith. Long time horizons. Meanwhile, Tom Lee is doing the classic culturally Etherean thing to do. Be pragmatic. Have a plan. Maintain optionality. Be reasonable.

It’s always interesting when finance and culture collide, and one of the reasons why I find crypto so fascinating – it tends to produce stories like these.

It seems the latest season of DATs is coming to a close. BMNR is the clear winner of the Ethereum DAT season, and MSTR is evolving its sophistication as a yield refinery from an experimental Proof of Concept, to finding and scaling its breakout product: STRC.

I expect further DAT seasons to offer plenty of fruit for conversation and deliberation. Onwards!

Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

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