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1. Nakamoto reworks a key piece of its bitcoin treasury strategy
Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto Inc. (NAKA) has pushed back the due date on 60 million USDT of its loan from Kraken by one year, to December 4, 2027, according to an 8-K filing disclosed on Thursday, November 13. The amendment, signed November 11, leaves the company with no principal due in 2026 and lets Kraken count Nakamoto's derivatives toward collateral, reshaping a central part of its bitcoin treasury strategy.
Nakamoto is a publicly traded company that holds bitcoin as a core asset and has borrowed against those holdings. That combination has become common among so-called treasury companies, which raise money from investors and lenders and use it to accumulate bitcoin on their balance sheets. Borrowing lets these firms hold more of the asset, but it also ties their financial health closely to the price of bitcoin.
The timing is notable. Bitcoin dropped below $70,000 during the week of the filing, a slide linked to the liquidation of leveraged long positions across the market. For a company whose loan is secured by bitcoin, a falling price is the main source of risk, and the changes to the Kraken agreement address that risk on two fronts: time and collateral.
2. How bitcoin-backed loans can turn against borrowers
A loan backed by bitcoin works much like a margin account. The borrower pledges coins to the lender, and the value of those coins has to stay comfortably above the size of the loan. When the price of bitcoin falls, the same number of pledged coins covers less of the debt.
If coverage drops far enough, the lender can issue a collateral call. The borrower then has to post more coins or repay part of the loan. If neither happens, the lender can sell the pledged coins to protect itself. For a treasury company, a forced sale is the outcome most worth avoiding, because it means giving up bitcoin at low prices, often at a loss, and it can weigh further on the market.
That dynamic explains why the details of Nakamoto's amendment matter. More time before repayment reduces the pressure to find cash on a tight schedule, and a broader definition of collateral gives the company more cushion before a call is triggered.
The arrangement also has a time dimension. Loans with near-term maturities force a borrower to repay or refinance on a fixed date, whatever the market is doing at that moment. If that date arrives during a downturn, the company may have little choice but to sell bitcoin or accept tougher terms, which is why lenders' willingness to extend deadlines can be as valuable as the size of the loan itself.
3. The new terms of the Kraken loan
The lender is Payward Interactive, Inc., which does business as Kraken. The loan is denominated in USDT, the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether, rather than in dollars themselves.
Of the 165 million USDT outstanding, 60 million USDT had been due on December 4, 2026. That portion now falls due on December 4, 2027. The remaining 105 million USDT is still scheduled for repayment on June 30, 2027.
Borrowing in a stablecoin instead of dollars changes little for the arithmetic of the loan, since USDT is designed to trade at one dollar, but it does mean the debt sits inside the crypto ecosystem. Repayment has to be made in the token, and the loan lives on the same exchange infrastructure where the company's pledged bitcoin and trading wallet are held.
The loan carries an annual fee of 7.75% as long as Nakamoto's subsidiary keeps at least 2,000 bitcoin in a designated Kraken trading wallet, according to the company's quarterly report. If the balance drops below that threshold, the rate rises to 8.00%. The structure rewards the company for keeping a sizable portion of its bitcoin on the lender's platform.
Chief Investment Officer Tyler Evans said in a press release that the amendment extends the company's runway and makes its collateral position more resilient.
4. Kraken now counts derivatives as collateral
The second major change concerns what counts as security for the loan. Kraken will now include the net value of Nakamoto's derivatives positions, held through Payward Oceanic Ltd., when it measures whether the loan is adequately backed.
Kraken values those positions every day, sets a floor of zero so that a losing position cannot reduce the collateral count, and uses the result in its collateral and liquidation tests. In other words, derivatives that gain value can add to Nakamoto's cushion, but derivatives that lose value do not subtract from it.
Put options illustrate why this matters. A put is a contract that pays out if the price of an asset falls below a set level, known as the strike price. As of September 30, Nakamoto held puts covering 2,000 bitcoin with a strike of $55,000, expiring December 25, 2026.
Those puts work as insurance against a steep decline. If bitcoin were to fall well below $55,000, the contracts would rise in value just as the pledged coins lost value. By counting the puts as collateral, Kraken allows that protection to offset some of the damage a price drop would otherwise do to the loan's coverage.
Hedges of this kind come at a price. Buying put options requires paying a premium up front, and when the market rises instead of falling, the contracts lose value. That cost is the trade-off a treasury company accepts in exchange for protection against a crash, and it shows up directly in the company's results, as the third-quarter figures below make clear.
5. At what bitcoin price does the loan's coverage run out?
Based on the coins Nakamoto had pledged as of September 30, the collateral covers the 165 million USDT loan down to roughly $54,455 per bitcoin, treating one USDT as one dollar. Below that level, the pledged bitcoin alone would be worth less than the debt.
The calculation is straightforward. Nakamoto had pledged 3,030 bitcoin as of September 30. Dividing the 165 million USDT loan by 3,030 coins gives about $54,455 per bitcoin. That figure sits just under the $55,000 strike of the company's puts, which means the options begin paying out at almost exactly the price at which the pledged coins would stop covering the loan on their own.
At a bitcoin price of $68,494 on Coinbase at 12:24 p.m. ET on Friday, the 3,030 pledged coins were worth about $207.5 million. That equals roughly 126% of the loan, a cushion of about 26% above the amount owed.
The company's market value was considerably smaller than that collateral. With 18,346,473 shares trading at $5.10 around midday on Friday, Nakamoto's equity was worth about $93.6 million.
6. What the filings leave unanswered
Several details that would sharpen the risk picture are missing from the disclosures. The filings do not name the coverage level at which Kraken would issue a collateral call or begin liquidating pledged coins, so the precise margin of safety is not public.
The documents also do not disclose any fee Nakamoto paid for the extension. And they provide no figures for pledged bitcoin or put positions after September 30, which means the coverage calculation rests on holdings that may have changed in the six weeks since.
Those gaps matter for investors trying to judge how close the company is to pressure from its lender. The $54,455 figure is a useful reference point, but without the trigger levels and current holdings, it is an approximation rather than a precise threshold.
7. A quarter driven by the bitcoin price
Nakamoto's recent results show how heavily its finances depend on bitcoin's price, a pattern also seen at Twenty One Capital, whose quarterly profit was likewise traced to the cryptocurrency's rise.
Nakamoto reported third-quarter net income of $85.5 million. That profit came from a $110.4 million gain on its bitcoin holdings as the price reached $83,565 by September 30. Operating revenue, by contrast, was negative $1.9 million. The company's businesses earned $3.9 million, but its derivatives lost $5.8 million as the rally reduced the value of the protective positions it held.
The gap between those two figures reflects how treasury companies account for their holdings. Because bitcoin is marked to its market price at the end of each reporting period, a rising price produces large paper gains that flow into net income even if no coins are sold. A falling price works in reverse, which is why the same balance sheet can swing from a large quarterly profit to a heavy loss over a longer stretch.
Over the first nine months of the year, Nakamoto recorded a net loss of $286.2 million. Earlier in the year, in March, the company sold 284 bitcoin at a 40% loss to fund its operations, an example of the kind of sale treasury companies try to avoid.
8. What comes next for Nakamoto
The next milestones are already on the calendar. Nakamoto's put options on 2,000 bitcoin expire on December 25, 2026, removing that layer of protection unless they are replaced. The 105 million USDT portion of the Kraken loan comes due on June 30, 2027, followed by the extended 60 million USDT on December 4, 2027.
Until then, the company's position will track the price of bitcoin closely. With the market sliding below $70,000 and the pledged collateral covering the loan down to about $54,455 per coin, the extension buys time, but the company's ability to avoid collateral calls still depends on where bitcoin trades in the months ahead.
For the wider group of bitcoin treasury companies, the amendment is a reminder that borrowing against bitcoin can amplify both gains and strains. Lenders willing to extend maturities and recognize hedges as collateral can ease that strain, but the underlying exposure to the price of a volatile asset remains.