How concentrated are token treasuries?
Heavily. A GSR report of August 2026, as reported by Crypto Briefing, put DAO treasuries above $26 billion in the first quarter of 2026 with more than 70% held in each DAO's own token. The individual figures bear that out.
Concentration makes a treasury procyclical. When the token falls, the treasury's value and its revenue fall with it, sales to fund operations follow, and those sales push the price down again. The Ethereum Foundation tracks no own-token position on DefiLlama because ETH is its reserve asset, and it still sets explicit rules for how much to sell.
How much of each treasury is its own token?
Share of treasury value held in the project's own token
How does a concentrated treasury get into trouble?
- Token price fallsThe treasury's largest asset loses value
- Runway shrinksOperating costs are in dollars
- Forced salesTokens sold to fund operations
- More price pressureSales land on the same order books
- Break pointsA stable operating reserve, sales sized to depth, a hedge
What runway rules do large treasuries publish?
| Treasury | Rule or position | Figures |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereum Foundation | Annual operating spend of 15% of treasury with a 2.5-year buffer in fiat-denominated reserves; ETH sales sized each quarter against the buffer | Policy of 4 June 2025; glide to a 5% spend baseline over five years |
| Uniswap Foundation | Cash and stablecoins against annual spend | $49.9M of $85.8M in cash and stablecoins at 31 December 2025; 2025 spend $9.7M; runway to January 2027 |
| ENS endowment | ETH and stablecoin mix under an external manager | About 61% ETH and 39% stablecoins of $113.86M in December 2025; net yield 3.39%; 6.5-year runway cited |
| Arbitrum DAO | Treasury tokens moved into tokenized US Treasuries | Over $30M in the first round from July 2024; 35M ARB approved for the second in May 2025 |
What do idle treasury assets earn?
Yield rises with the time it takes to get the money back and the risk taken to earn it. TDMM sizes the yield sleeve by how quickly each tier can be unwound when the market needs the inventory. Rates move daily.
| Tier | Instrument | Rate | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokenized US Treasuries, market-wide | 3.65% 7-day yield | $14.95B |
| 2 | Sky sUSDS | 3.80% | $4.92B |
| 2 | Lido stETH | 2.24% | $24.5B |
| 3 | Ethena sUSDe | 5.04% | $1.22B |
| 3 | Maple USDC | 5.21% | $2.78B |
How can a treasury or investor sell, and what does each route cost?
Each route trades price against speed, certainty and disclosure. The examples are public transactions.
| Route | How it works | Cost or terms seen | Best for | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scheduled exchange selling | Many small orders over weeks | Modelled impact of 0.33% at 1% of volume and 1.04% at 10% (TDMM model) | Liquid tokens; the Ethereum Foundation sold 10,000 ETH this way in September 2025 | Price drift while waiting |
| OTC block | One negotiated trade with a named buyer | Not disclosed in the Ethereum Foundation's 10,000 ETH sale to SharpLink | Size without touching the order book | Counterparty and signalling |
| Locked sale to an investor | Stablecoins for tokens under lock-up | Lido to Dragonfly, 2022: 10M LDO at a premium to the prior average with a one-year lock | Diversifying out of the project's own token | Governance rejection |
| DAO-to-DAO swap | A fixed-rate exchange of tokens | Aave and Balancer, 2022: about $1.62M of AAVE for about $1.13M of BAL | Strategic alignment | Swaps one concentrated token for another |
| Locked-token secondary | Sale of a vesting position | Median discount of about 40% to 60%+ by remaining vesting (OFFX) | Investors who need liquidity before unlock | Deep discount; transfer limits |
| Hedge, then sell | Short perpetual futures against the position | About 10.95% a year at default funding (TDMM model) | Tokens with a liquid perp market | Funding costs and margin calls |
What discount do locked tokens sell at?
Holders who cannot wait for an unlock sell the vesting position itself. STIX data reported by CryptoSlate showed locked holders in 11 tokens with an average drawdown near 50% against May 2024 valuations.
Median discount on locked-token secondary sales, by remaining vesting
Who holds the keys?
Custody failures are treasury failures. Three recent cases show different ways control was lost.
| Case | Loss | How control was lost | Control that addresses it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bybit, February 2025 | About $1.5B | Altered code in the signing interface showed signers one transaction while they approved another | Independent verification of transaction data before signing |
| Compound, July 2024 | Proposal for about $24M of COMP | A large holder passed a treasury proposal by a narrow vote | Vote thresholds, timelocks and delegated safeguards |
| Balancer, November 2025 | About $128M exploit | A protocol exploit; a wind-down was proposed in September 2026 | Treasury assets held apart from protocol contracts |
Does fair-value accounting apply to a project's own token?
Not under the US standard. ASU 2023-08 took effect for fiscal years beginning after 15 December 2024 and measures in-scope crypto assets at fair value through net income. Its scope excludes tokens created or issued by the reporting entity or its related parties, so a project's own treasury token is outside it. Take accounting advice for your own entity.
What does TDMM do, and what does it not do?
Inventory management
Token and stablecoin balances across venues and wallets, with rebalancing and a view of what is on loan to market makers.
Yield inventory optimisation
Returns on idle holdings within agreed limits, tiered by how fast each position can be unwound.
Liquidity provision
Treasury assets deployed as managed order book and pool liquidity.
Exit management
Scheduled execution, OTC blocks and hedging for large positions, with the market kept two-sided while the position is reduced.
Not an adviser
TDMM does not choose allocations, give investment advice or hold itself out as an asset manager.
How does TDMM plan a treasury sale or exit?
- 1
Size the position
The holding measured in days of trading volume and against depth on each venue.
- 2
Choose routes
Scheduled selling, OTC, a hedge or a locked sale, alone or combined.
- 3
Set the pace
A share of daily volume the market can absorb, placed around unlocks and announcements.
- 4
Execute on one book
Sales run alongside market making so the two do not compete.
- 5
Report
Fills, prices against benchmark and remaining inventory.
Frequently asked questions
What is token treasury management?
Token treasury management is the handling of a project's or investor's token and stablecoin holdings: what is held, where it is kept, what it earns and how it is sold. For a token project it also covers inventory lent to market makers.
How much of a DAO treasury is usually its own token?
More than 70% on average, according to a GSR report of August 2026. On 8 October 2026 Arbitrum DAO held about 87% of its treasury in ARB on DefiLlama's figures.
How much runway should a treasury hold in stable assets?
Published practice varies. The Ethereum Foundation holds a 2.5-year buffer in fiat-denominated reserves. The Uniswap Foundation held $49.9 million in cash and stablecoins against $9.7 million of annual spend at the end of 2025.
How do you sell treasury tokens without moving the price?
By selling in small orders over weeks, by selling a block over the counter, or both. The Ethereum Foundation did both in 2025. Sales should be sized to a share of daily volume the market can absorb.
What do tokenized Treasury bills pay?
The market-wide 7-day yield was 3.65% on 8 October 2026 across $14.95 billion of tokenized Treasuries, according to rwa.xyz. Rates change daily.
What discount do locked tokens sell at?
Median discounts of about 40% for vesting of 12 months or less, about 50% for 13 to 24 months and 60% or more for 36 months or longer, according to OFFX data reported in April 2026.
Is a multisig enough to protect a treasury?
Not alone. In the Bybit case of February 2025 the signers approved a transaction that their interface misrepresented. Independent verification of what is being signed matters as much as the number of signers.
Is TDMM an asset manager?
No. TDMM is the execution and liquidity layer. It supplies inventory management, execution, hedging and liquidity, and it does not pick allocations or give investment advice.
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TDMM publishes this page about its own service. It is information only and is not investment, legal or tax advice. TDMM does not promise token prices or trading volume. Benchmarks and model outputs are dated and sourced in each caption.