How Public Companies Are Generating Yield with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana

Written By BlockSpaceForce

The digital asset treasury (DAT) landscape has evolved dramatically since 2020. What began with Bitcoin as a macro hedge has since expanded into a layered, multi-chain architecture – where Ethereum and Solana now play critical roles as yield-generating assets.

For public companies, this evolution is unfolding in phases, each building on the last with more sophisticated capital strategies, product capabilities, and income streams. The most advanced players aren’t just holding tokens. They’re building engineered portfolios that generate yield, support operations, and unlock capital formation. 

This article explores that transformation across four key phases.

Phase One: Bitcoin as Digital Gold

Bitcoin was the gateway. In 2020, Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) pioneered corporate BTC accumulation, framing Bitcoin as a hard-money hedge against inflation and currency debasement. Over the next five years, more than 130 public companies followed suit, collectively accumulating hundreds of thousands of BTC.

Bitcoin’s fixed supply and pristine scarcity made it a natural reserve asset – but it came with a tradeoff: no native yield. That limitation forced companies to explore capital structuring as a way to unlock value.

Common BTC yield approaches include:

  • Collateralized borrowing: Unlock liquidity without selling.

  • Options and derivatives: Covered calls and structured notes to monetize volatility.

  • Institutional lending: Earn 5–10% annually, with counterparty risk.

  • Hybrid treasuries: Use BTC as reserve while deploying ETH or stablecoins to earn yield.

Leading examples include DDC Enterprise, which built a 1,000+ BTC treasury and partnered with QCP Capital to deploy derivatives and lending strategies. And Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which engineered convertibles, ATM equity programs, and preferred shares to acquire more BTC – effectively turning its treasury into a financial product platform.

This first phase was less about income, more about conviction. It laid the foundation for the rise of blockstocks: public companies that integrate crypto treasuries into their corporate identities, unlocking valuation premiums through scarcity and market signaling.

Phase Two: Ethereum as a Productive Asset

Ethereum marked a shift. When the network transitioned to proof-of-stake in 2022, it unlocked a native yield mechanism, staking, that made ETH fundamentally different from BTC.

For corporate treasurers, this was a turning point. Rather than just holding an appreciating asset, they could now earn 3–5% annually in base yield – and stack additional returns through DeFi overlays and restaking.

Core ETH yield strategies now include:

  • Validator and delegated staking

  • Liquid staking tokens (e.g., stETH, rETH)

  • On-chain lending and collateral loops

  • Restaking via EigenLayer and similar protocols

  • Tokenized RWAs and staking-integrated debt products

  • Regulated staking ETPs for compliant access

With disciplined structuring, treasuries can earn 6–10% on their ETH positions; turning them into active income streams.

Notable companies:

These moves marked the beginning of a broader transformation into what we refer to as Crypto Asset Product Companies (CAPs): public companies that move beyond passive exposure to actively engineering financial products around their crypto assets. 

CAPs design and launch instruments such as staking-linked equity, token-backed debt, and structured treasury programs that generate yield and capture market premiums. Ethereum catalyzed this shift, turning digital asset treasuries into yield-generating capital platforms.

Phase Three: Solana and the Expansion of Yield Layers

Solana represents the next frontier. Its fast, low-cost design and growing validator network make it an increasingly attractive platform for treasury deployment – especially for companies seeking higher throughput and native yield.

By Q4 2025, public companies held more than 2.2 million SOL tokens, valued at close to $3 billion. That puts Solana treasuries on par with some of the largest ETH holders in the public markets.

Top Solana-native treasury companies include:

  • Forward Industries (6.8M SOL)

  • DeFi Development Corp (NASDAQ: DFDV) (2M+ SOL)

  • Upexi (2M SOL)

  • Sharp Technology

  • SOL Strategies and HSDT Solana Company

Solana’s native staking yields of 6–7% annually, combined with validator income, DeFi lending protocols, and token-based incentives, offer compelling treasury opportunities. Futures and options markets around SOL have also grown significantly, with over $34B in notional value traded in Q3 2025.

Firms like DFDV and Upexi are building out Solana-native treasury programs, blending delegation, validator revenue, and DeFi participation. Solana complements ETH within multi-chain treasuries – offering speed, flexibility, and composability as capital needs evolve.

Phase Four: The Blockstock Era – Multi-Strategy Treasury Architectures

The most advanced public companies are no longer managing generic exposures. They're building structured, multi-strategy treasuries that blend approaches that take experience from working with Bitcoin’s scarcity, Ethereum’s yield mechanics, and Solana’s validator infrastructure, turning it into an integrated capital stack.

These treasuries aren’t passive stores of value. They’re becoming platforms for capital formation: designed to generate yield, unlock liquidity, and support equity and debt innovation across cycles.

This marks the entry point into what BSF calls blockstocks: public companies that strategically adopt crypto assets and abstract them into financial products. Blockstocks don’t just hold digital assets – they engineer them into capital instruments that drive premium valuations.

Examples include:

  • Convertible bonds collateralized by BTC

  • Staking-linked equity programs backed by the underlying crypto asset

  • Validator-based income streams securitized into growth capital

  • Treasuries structured for mNAV premium capture across chains

  • Innovative, technical breakthrough-based DeFi mechanisms that allow trustless staking and yield generation

These financial architectures are what differentiate blockstocks from simple treasury holders. Just as REITs structured real estate into income-generating equity, blockstocks are structuring crypto into programmable capital layers, and the market is responding accordingly.

As regulatory clarity improves and institutional infrastructure matures, this phase will define the next generation of corporate finance: where digital asset treasuries evolve from exposure to execution, and companies compete not on what they hold, but on how well they productize it.

Explore Further

Explore the full investment thesis behind CAPs and blockstocks in our Fund Thesis.

For more insights on digital asset treasuries, crypto capital innovation, and financial product engineering, follow BlockSpaceForce on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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