VivoPower’s XRP Treasury Strategy: Buying at 84% Discount

Adam Traidman, VivoPower International’s Chairman of the Board of Advisors and former Ripple board member, painted a stark picture of the current state of digital asset treasury companies during his appearance at the XRP Meetup NYC. Speaking ahead of Ripple’s Swell conference, Traidman described how these publicly listed entities, which had generated significant excitement earlier in the year, are now experiencing a dramatic downturn reminiscent of the investment-trust boom-and-bust cycle of the early 2000s.

“In the last 60 days or so, we’ve seen several and many, actually, of the digital asset treasury companies collapse,” Traidman stated. “A lot of the stocks have been down by 80%, 90%. This is reminiscent of what we saw in the early 2000s… Initially, they traded at much higher to their net asset value. And eventually, they collapsed completely. And those companies are not publicly traded anymore.” The former Ripple board member was unequivocal in his assessment: “To be totally honest, the same thing is happening with DAT companies right now.”

In response to this market turmoil, Traidman outlined what he termed a “DAT 2.0” or “anti-DAT” strategy that VivoPower is implementing. The core innovation involves acquiring underlying crypto exposure at substantial discounts rather than paying spot market prices. “What we are doing at VivoPower, and what I think the future is, is this sort of second generation of DATs,” Traidman explained. “I call it a DAT 2.0 strategy. Some folk call it an anti-DAT strategy, which is, instead of buying the net asset at spot price, you buy the net asset at a massive discount.”

Traidman used Bitcoin to illustrate the extraordinary nature of the discounts VivoPower is achieving. “How would you buy Bitcoin at an 80% discount today? You can’t… You might mine it… and then you might be able to get it at a 20%, 30% discount by mining it… But how the hell are you going to get it for 80% off?” The answer, according to Traidman, lies in the unique relationship between XRP and Ripple. “There’s 25 million cryptocurrencies on coinmarketcap.com. There’s only one that is tied to a private company that is severely undervalued in terms of its share price, and that’s XRP, because of Ripple, right? And so that’s the opportunity that we are taking advantage of.”

VivoPower’s specific mechanism involves purchasing shares in Ripple to gain XRP exposure at what Traidman claims is an 84% discount. With Ripple’s recent $40 billion valuation, this discount effectively translates to 59% off current XRP market prices. The strategy represents a fundamental shift from traditional crypto acquisition methods, leveraging corporate financing structures rather than direct market purchases.

The second component of VivoPower’s DAT 2.0 strategy focuses on generating immediate returns through yield-generating networks. After securing discounted XRP exposure through Ripple-related mechanisms, the company partners with Flare Network to put these assets to work. “And then we work with our partners, like Flare, in order to generate yield on those XRP assets,” Traidman detailed. “And so that’s essentially buying XRP basically 84% off, and then investing it onto networks like Flare in order to generate a yield.”

This sequencing—discounted acquisition followed by yield generation—creates what Traidman describes as a fundamentally different economic model from first-generation digital asset treasuries. The approach eliminates the dependency on market premiums that has plagued companies like MicroStrategy, which relies on its stock trading above its net asset value. “So it’s like a DAT 1.0 plus the 2.0 strategy, right? And so the companies in this model don’t even need to trade at a premium to MNAV, like Saylor’s MicroStrategy does, because by default, they’re making money on day one,” Traidman explained.

The immediate profitability stems from what Traidman characterizes as a “forex return” that begins the moment capital is deployed. “T plus one second, every dollar that gets put into our company gets a forex return, right? That’s only available when you can buy the net asset at a discount.” This creates a self-sustaining economic model that doesn’t require market validation through premium valuations, addressing one of the key weaknesses that led to the collapse of first-generation DAT companies.

The DAT 2.0 strategy emerges at a critical juncture for crypto treasury management, with XRP trading at $2.44 at the time of Traidman’s remarks. The approach represents a sophisticated evolution in corporate crypto strategy, moving beyond simple accumulation to structured acquisition and utilization. By leveraging the unique corporate-crypto linkage between Ripple and XRP, VivoPower has identified what Traidman believes is a singular opportunity in the cryptocurrency landscape.

The model’s independence from market premiums could potentially insulate it from the volatility that has devastated first-generation DAT companies. Unlike MicroStrategy’s approach, which depends on maintaining stock prices above net asset value, VivoPower’s strategy generates returns through the acquisition discount itself, supplemented by network yield. This creates a more resilient structure that begins generating returns immediately, regardless of market sentiment toward the holding company’s stock.

As the digital asset treasury space continues to evolve, VivoPower’s DAT 2.0 approach may signal a new direction for corporate crypto strategies—one that prioritizes structural advantages and yield generation over simple asset accumulation. The success of this model could influence how other companies approach cryptocurrency exposure, particularly as they seek to avoid the fate of the first-generation DAT companies that have seen their valuations collapse by 80-90% in recent months.