What people are really asking

A treasurer’s job is to protect the company’s ability to pay its obligations. An asset that can move by double digits in a month sounds like the opposite of that job.

What is true in the myth

Bitcoin has been highly volatile. There have been periods of steep drawdowns, and nobody can promise they will not happen again. A banker would never count it as cash or a cash equivalent, and neither should a company. It belongs in a different bucket from operating liquidity.

Where the myth breaks down

Volatility is a property of the asset, but risk is a property of the position. A very small holding in a volatile asset can carry less risk to the company than a very large holding in a stable one. This is how banks and funds think: they limit exposure, they match it to the horizon, and they keep a liquidity buffer for what must be paid soon.

Compare the two risks. Idle cash carries a certain, slow loss of purchasing power. Bitcoin carries a large, uncertain price swing. Neither is free. Treasury is the discipline of choosing which risks to hold, in what size, for what reason. I think of it as a lifeboat: you do not live in it, but you want one on board in case the ship has a problem.

What a prudent policy looks like

An illustrative example, not advice: a cap of a small percentage of reserves, bought gradually rather than all at once, with operating liquidity kept entirely separate, a review each quarter, and a pre-agreed response if the position falls below a set level or rises above the cap. The exact numbers depend on your balance sheet, your obligations and your board.

What we do with your team

We stress-test the proposed size against your own cash flows, show what a severe fall would do to the business, and write the limits into the policy so that a bad month never becomes a bad decision.