This Bitcoin Trick Makes You Richer When They Print More Shares

(Yes, Really)

The day I understood the concept of Multiple Net Asset Value in a Bitcoin treasury company, something in my view of investing changed forever. It felt like unlocking a new layer in a game I thought I already knew. My mind was blown. Not because the concept is complex, but because it’s so widely misunderstood by most investors.

Let’s break it down. Bitcoin treasury companies, like MicroStrategy, are publicly traded and hold large amounts of BTC on their balance sheets. Sometimes they even take on debt to buy more. The market, in turn, assigns them a value that reflects not just the Bitcoin per share, but also a speculative premium. That ratio between the stock price and the Bitcoin per share is called the Multiple over Net Asset Value (or NAV).

When that multiple is 1, the market values the company exactly at its Bitcoin value. When it’s 2, you’re paying double. That is, for every dollar in BTC, the market pays two dollars in equity. Sounds expensive and in some ways it is, but here’s the crazy part: if the company issues new shares at that price, you’re not being diluted. You’re winning. Because the company is receiving double the Bitcoin per share it’s issuing. It’s arbitraging its own premium.

Here’s a simple example: imagine a company with 100 shares outstanding and 1 Bitcoin. The market values each share at $20, so the total market cap is $2,000, while the BTC on its balance sheet is worth $1,000. The NAV is $10 per share, and the multiple is 2x. Now the company issues 100 new shares at $20. It raises $2,000 and buys 2 more BTC. Now it has 200 shares and 3 BTC. Each share now represents 3 BTC / 200 = 0.015 BTC. Before, it was 1 BTC / 100 = 0.01 BTC. So each share now holds more Bitcoin, not less. And yet, the typical narrative would be that shareholders have been diluted. In reality, value has been multiplied.

And still, when this happens, the chatter online is the opposite. “We’re being diluted,” “they’re printing shares to pay themselves,” “it’s a scam.” The reality is, if the multiple is high and the company issues shares to buy more BTC, shareholders are gaining Bitcoin per share. The exact opposite of what most think. This is one of those financial system quirks where intuition misleads you.

Obviously, this only works as long as the multiple remains high and the company has access to markets. If they issue when the multiple is below 1, then yes, there is effective loss of BTC per share. But if they do it above 1, especially near 2, it’s like printing equity to buy more Bitcoin. A kind of corporate alchemy.

This made me realize the rules change when you operate with hard assets like BTC in a flexible capital system like the public markets. We explored this Bitcoin-first perspective in depth in another article, where we showed why BTC isn’t just a store of value, but a financial operating system. You can read it here, search for “This Changes Everything About Money”.

A company can become a kind of leveraged ETF without paying the fees of a real ETF. It can use equity like a derivative that captures speculative value and converts hype into real assets. And once you see that, you understand why Michael Saylor isn’t crazy. He’s operating a system that turns narrative into Bitcoin.

You also start to see why sometimes it’s more powerful to own the company stock than the asset directly at certain points in the cycle. Not always. But when the multiple is high and the company is issuing, returns can be exponential. Because not only does Bitcoin price go up, the NAV goes up too, and the multiple can expand. It’s a double layer of convexity.

But you need to be careful. This isn’t a free lunch. If the multiple collapses or the company stops issuing intelligently, you could be stuck in an instrument that no longer captures extra value. And as always, you need to know which box you’re playing in: are you buying for flow, for core, or for optionality? This kind of play fits squarely in the asymmetric optionality box.

I don’t use these strategies to live off flow. I use them to strike. For those moments when there’s dislocation, strong narrative, and a narrow time window. The rest of the portfolio must be antifragile, simple, with constant flow and no need to sell. But once you understand how a company can dilute to increase BTC per share, you can’t look at markets the same way again. Because you realize you’re not just investing in assets. You’re investing in structures that create assets from narrative and liquidity. And that, when used well, is one of the most powerful tools that exist.

Below the Asymmetric Finance portfolio