Xiao Feng's Bitcoin Asia 2025 speech: "ETFs are good! DATs are better!"

At Bitcoin Asia 2025, HashKey Group Chairman and CEO Dr. Xiao Feng argued that while ETFs have successfully brought Bitcoin to traditional stock investors, DATs (Digital Asset Treasuries) may be a superior financial instrument for crypto assets. He outlined several key advantages of DATs over ETFs:

Better Liquidity: DATs operate on exchanges with faster settlement times (minutes vs. days for ETF creations/redemptions), providing superior liquidity.
Greater Price Elasticity: DATs are valued by market capitalization (MMV), not net asset value (NAV). This creates higher volatility, which attracts hedge funds and alternative investors who use it for structuring, arbitrage, and price protection.
More Appropriate Leverage: DATs fill a gap between holding spot crypto and buying futures, allowing companies to design leveraged financing structures. Investors can gain a higher premium than the underlying crypto's price growth.
Built-in Downside Protection: If a DAT's share price falls below its NAV, it effectively allows investors to buy the underlying crypto at a discount, creating a natural safety mechanism.

Dr. Xiao Feng concluded that just as ETFs revolutionized basket investing for stocks, DATs are poised to become the preferred vehicle for crypto asset investment over the next three to five years, potentially growing to match the scale of stock market ETFs in the future.

On August 28th, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, delivered a keynote speech titled "ETF is good! DAT is better!" at Bitcoin Asia 2025. This speech was compiled from on-site shorthand, with some deletions that do not affect the original meaning.

In recent months, many friends have asked me a question. From on-chain Bitcoin trading to off-chain stock exchanges, Bitcoin has become a very popular investment tool in stock trading. So, is it more appropriate for such an investment tool to be in the form of an ETF or a DAT (Digital Asset Treasury)?

My personal conclusion is that perhaps a model like DAT, just like when ETF first came out, is a revolution in new financial instruments.

We know that stocks evolved from individual stocks traded on stock exchanges to index funds, and then to exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Innovations in financial instruments have created a vast new asset class. Cryptocurrency has evolved from on-chain to off-chain, allowing all stock market investors to easily and habitually access crypto assets through the stock market, a method that is now accessible to 99% of the population. So, which approach is better? ETFs or DATs?

My personal opinion is that DATs may be the best way for crypto assets to move from on-chain to off-chain. We can see that currently, the only single commodity, single-asset investment tool in the global capital market is gold, the largest ETF. There aren't single-stock ETFs for stocks, because stocks are already traded on stock exchanges and are easily accessible. If you want to buy a basket of stocks, such as an index fund, you need other investment tools. Index funds or ETFs are the most convenient tools for traditional investors. Previously, single-asset ETFs were limited to gold, but with the launch of the BTC ETF, we now have a second type of single-asset ETF. This is a natural and natural progression, as ETFs are commonly used to create investment vehicles, making it easier for traditional stock market investors to invest in alternative assets, such as crypto.

However, when valuing ETFs, we use Net Asset Value (NAV); while for DATs, we use Market Value (MMV). These two concepts are completely different. Market Value leads to greater price volatility, while NAV fluctuations are much smaller than Market Value. Therefore, as a single investment tool for crypto, I believe DATs are the preferred approach.

Better liquidity

The biggest advantage of DAT is that it has better liquidity than ETF, which is the most important and core point for any investor.

My observation is that the smoothest and most effective way to convert cryptocurrencies into traditional financial assets is through exchanges. The growth of ETFs, on the other hand, comes from subscriptions and redemptions, which require three or more intermediaries and take one to two days to complete. This is clearly inferior to transactions on a distributed ledger, which can take as little as two or ten minutes. Therefore, transactions may be the primary method for converting between traditional financial and crypto assets in the future, making greater liquidity a core advantage of DATs over ETFs.

Better price elasticity

At the same time, market capitalization offers greater price elasticity than net asset value. We know that one of the key reasons MicroStrategy has been able to consistently build its financing structure through various financing instruments and hold a significant amount of Bitcoin is the inherent volatility of BTC. Furthermore, hedge funds and other alternative investors are drawn to investing because they can own a more volatile asset through shares, allowing them to split equity and bond over-the-counter, turning volatility into another tool for both price protection and arbitrage. Convertible bonds (CBs) are particularly popular, as they are often structured and broken down over-the-counter by hedge funds and alternative investment firms. Therefore, these institutions favor investing in companies like MicroStrategy, buying its shares or convertible bonds, because they can structure their investments. This offers greater price elasticity, something ETFs lack.

More appropriate leverage ratio

Third, it offers more appropriate leverage. Previously, single-asset investing was limited to two extremes: holding spot BTC or ETH, or buying futures or CME contracts. A significant gap exists in between. This gap allows listed companies to design appropriate leveraged financing structures. By simply holding shares, the company manages the leveraged structure, allowing you to enjoy a higher premium than the price growth of the cryptocurrency itself.

Built-in fall protection

Instruments like DATs offer a premium and inherent downside protection. Imagine if the stock price drops by more than the net asset value, this effectively provides investors with an opportunity to buy BTC or ETH at a discount. This market price fluctuation will quickly be eliminated by the market, providing a strong downside protection. Otherwise, you'd rather buy stocks, effectively buying BTC or ETH at a discount.

Taking all these factors into consideration, DATs may be a more suitable financing tool for crypto assets. Just as ETFs were well-suited to index or basket investment strategies in the stock market, DATs may be a new trend we will see over the next three to five years.

The scale of assets held by DATs may approach the scale covered by current stock market ETFs, perhaps within another ten years. Therefore, I believe DATs are a new investment tool with the greatest growth potential in the future. They are more suitable for crypto assets, while ETFs may be more suitable for stock assets.

Of course, this is just my personal opinion. Thank you everyone.