Is DAT still useful during a bear market?

Author: Crypto Vaidra; Source: X, @thecryptoskanda

After BMNR and MSTR consecutively fell below mNAV 1, basically everyone talking about DAT now says, “The DAT scam is over.”

From the perspective of the native crypto circle, DAT is invalid: It’s like letting someone else buy coins on your behalf, especially since several coins have ETFs. Buying DAT now can be seen as paying for Tom Lee and Michael Saylor’s personal brands—donating money to these two loudspeakers facing traditional finance.

But is it really completely useless? Maybe not.

1 Earning interest on held tokens to support DAT’s performance

Many DATs are considering or already doing this. Mainly by staking the tokens they hold, like Solana’s DAT; there are also discussions about generating revenue through lending protocols, such as some ETH-based ones. On average, the interest rates are generally in the 3-6% range.

The biggest potential for gaming is $ATH’s $AGPU (, formerly called POAI. Because ATH claims to operate as an enterprise-level computing power pool, with AI computing power leasing generating $166M annually, which is equivalent to a national treasury income of $33M per year.

If this is real (relying on disclosures from listed compliant companies?), and there’s a way to distribute even just a part of the token holding income logic, for a project with a market cap of only $20M and mNAV of just 0.3 (yes, even with $ATH’s current price ) for the small shell, there’s huge room for price recovery),

Why not assume using this money for direct buybacks $ATH ?

Put yourself in the project team’s shoes: after no more progress can be made in increasing liquidity on exchanges, how do you maximize the value of your chips?

Originally, $ATH made no promises that revenue would be shared with token holders. Choosing to buy back tokens directly, besides helping retail investors exit, has no real benefit. If the goal is to maximize cash-out from the spot market, then doing DAT from the start would be pointless (aka letting traditional finance take over).

But transferring this revenue to DAT is different. DAT already represents the interests of $ATH’s major holders. Through revenue transfer, it’s very easy to open up buying space in the US stock market, and there’s less unlocking pressure compared to $ATH. Instead, it can signal stability through mNAV’s recovery, minimizing the pressure from the current double kill.

I believe that such gaming scenarios with ATH are just the beginning. In the future, more projects with DAT will see direct investment/eco-revenue transferred from the project team’s holdings directly to DAT.

2 Arbitrage trading

Although most of the time quantitative funds are killing market directionality, making it more chaotic. But how can such liquidity not be considered liquidity?

DAT itself is similar to wrapping ETH or stablecoins; as long as it’s “wrapped,” there will be a price difference with the underlying asset, and arbitrage opportunities exist.

Returning to the earlier ATH example, with an mNAV of 0.3, theoretically, one could do currency exchange trading:

1. Go long AGPU
2. Short $ATH equivalent amount

Whether AGPU rises, causing mNAV to recover, or ATH continues to plummet later, there’s no loss.

Or, there are cross-chain arbitrage scenarios involving on-chain and off-chain.

Suppose AGPU’s mNAV should long-term return to the 0.8-1.2x range (MSTR is 0.94-1.12), then:

1. In US stocks: buy $AGPU with an assumed $50,000, which is equivalent to a $403 ATH exposure
2. In crypto: short $ATH 10x

Adjust positions based on NAV conditions (e.g., ATH crashes), aiming for mNAV to return to 0.6.

Of course, these arbitrage trades are purely theoretical. Because of obvious issues:

1. Involving traditional US stocks with T+1 settlement
2. The liquidity of this token itself is poor

Additionally, this is just an example with ATH. Many DATs require the opposite approach (like SOL’s FWDI), shorting US stocks with multiple tokens, which makes borrowing positions for shorting very difficult.

But these asymmetric liquidity arbitrage opportunities—do they resemble the kind of problems that can be solved by large-scale hype, on-chain “illegal” markets relying on synthetic positions?

(You know what kind of big-head advertising I’m talking about (, it’s so damn similar.

This is the real meaning of DAT’s existence: providing more gaming opportunities for the crypto circle, allowing it to stir traditional liquidity in its own way, rather than just doing RWA for traditional markets.

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