Bitcoin is one of the most recognizable brands in the world, but that doesn’t make it yours. The rise and struggle of 2025’s Bitcoin treasury companies show why businesses built on Bitcoin need an identity of their own.
Don’t get me wrong: Bitcoin is indeed a brand, and a remarkably successful one. It has a recognizable name, a distinctive visual identity, a clear set of principles, and a community that will defend it with an enthusiasm generally reserved for sports teams or arguments about whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza.
So while Bitcoin is, in and of itself, a brand…it’s just not your brand.
If you are building a company in Bitcoin, then Bitcoin is the industry you operate in, the technology you build on, or the asset at the center of your business. Your brand is your company: what it stands for, who it serves, what it does differently, and why anyone should care that it exists.
The distinction became especially apparent during the summer of 2025, when Bitcoin treasury companies seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. One after another announced a new company, a round of financing, and a plan to acquire as much bitcoin as possible. Many of them dressed themselves in Bitcoin’s identity, sometimes quite literally. How many incorporated the “₿,” its colors, or some variation of its visual language into their own logos?
There was an understandable reason for doing so. Bitcoin already had the recognition, credibility, and audience these companies wanted. Associating themselves as closely as possible with it created an immediate signal: We are a Bitcoin company, and you should pay attention to us.
But signal is not the same as brand.
A name and a logo can tell the market that a company exists. They cannot tell the market why it deserves to continue existing. A brand is the collection of expectations people attach to a company. It is the promise the company makes, the position it occupies, and the reason someone chooses it over an alternative. In the case of many treasury companies, the promise appeared to be little more than: Give us money, and we will buy bitcoin with it.
During a bull market, that may be enough to generate attention. When the price is rising, almost any company positioned as a vehicle for greater Bitcoin exposure can appear compelling. Investors may buy the stock, media outlets may cover the announcement, and the company may mistake all that activity for loyalty to its brand.
The problem is that the market may not care about the company at all. It may simply care about Bitcoin.
A bear market has a useful way of revealing the difference. When Bitcoin’s price began falling, several of these companies struggled to maintain momentum, raise additional capital, or present a convincing reason for investors to stay. Once the excitement surrounding the asset disappeared, there was not always much left underneath the company wrapped around it.
To be clear, branding was not the primary reason those companies struggled. If the entire operating model consists of raising money to buy bitcoin, then the company’s fortunes will inevitably be tied to its ability to raise money and to the performance of bitcoin. A stronger logo, a clever campaign, or a more polished set of brand guidelines would not have fixed that.
But branding is not merely a logo or a set of guidelines either.
Had those companies developed an identity and market position of their own, they might have created more room to adapt. They could have stood for a particular type of access, expertise, service, or customer experience. They could have built a relationship with an audience based on something beyond the expectation that Bitcoin’s price would continue to rise. Their position could have been adjacent to Bitcoin without being entirely consumed by it.
That distinction matters because one of the most valuable things a brand provides is permission.
A trusted brand has permission to introduce another product, serve a new customer, or change its operating model. It gives a company somewhere to move when its original strategy stops working. The reinvention still needs to be credible, and branding cannot compensate indefinitely for a bad business, but a company that means something to its customers, investors, and employees has more strategic runway than one whose entire identity was borrowed from an asset it does not control.
I am not suggesting that every treasury company without an operating business would have survived if it had developed a more independent brand. Most probably would not have. Branding cannot create sustainable economics where none exist.
My feeling, however, is that some of them might have had more time and more options. They might have been able to explain what came next because the company represented something broader than its bitcoin holdings. Instead of asking the market to remain enthusiastic about Bitcoin, they could have given the market a reason to remain interested in them.
Bitcoin can be part of your story. It may even be the reason your company was created. But if your company’s identity begins and ends with Bitcoin’s identity, then you have not built a brand – you have borrowed one.
And borrowed brands, much like borrowed money, tend to become most expensive when the market turns.
