Crypto treasury firms and the venture capitalists that back them are finding ever more creative (and complicated) ways to offset retail investor disinterest.
On September 8, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) (NASDAQ: MSTR) announced that it had acquired another 1,955 BTC for $217.4 million, bringing its market-leading stash to 636,460 tokens. Investors didn’t appear impressed, pushing the stock down sharply in the early hours of Monday’s trading, before the stock rallied somewhat to close at $329.90 (-1.8%).
Strategy’s single-page press release of its latest buy omits the full details of its Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, which shows that $200.5 million worth of the sum raised came via issuing new MSTR shares. Just $16.7 million came from two of Strategy’s ‘at the market’ (ATM) vehicles, STRF and STRIK. Meaning MSTR shareholders just got diluted. Again.
Strategy suffered a reputational blow on September 5 as the S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that MSTR wasn’t being added to the S&P500 index. The rejection came despite the company ostensibly meeting the criteria—market cap, trading volume, net income, etc.—for inclusion. (The next opportunity will come in December.)
But Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) did make the grade, possibly because it has significant business operations, whereas Strategy’s formerly core business analytics software unit has become an afterthought in the company’s quest to buy up to 7% of all the BTC that will ever exist.
Following this rejection, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor got a little salty in a tweet showing a chart of the decidedly non-GAAP metrics by which he presents the value of his company’s BTC holdings. However, while Strategy failed to make the S&P500, Saylor can content himself with having personally made the grade for another exclusive 500-member club.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Saylor is ranked #491 among the world’s richest individuals with a net worth of $7.36 billion as of September 7. That’s up over $1 billion since the year began, but given the mercurial nature of BTC, to which Saylor’s worth is inextricably linked, these figures are extremely fluid. In August, when BTC reached its all-time high, Saylor was ranked #385 with a net worth of $8.66 billion.
Saylor’s net worth is almost certainly higher, as the Index is based largely on his shares in Strategy and the cash he’s amassed from selling those shares. Not included in this total are the thousands of BTC Saylor claims to personally hold, based on Bloomberg’s inability to verify his ownership of these tokens.
Nasdaq clipping treasury wings?
Saylor’s personal wealth aside, his company’s dilutive BTC binge-buys suffered a brushback pitch from last week’s reports that the Nasdaq exchange will be subjecting crypto ‘treasury’ firms to greater scrutiny going forward.
Specifically, Nasdaq is said to be prepping new rules that would compel treasury firms to conduct shareholder votes on issuing new equity to raise funds to buy digital assets. The rule appears intended to give investors advance notice that their holdings are about to be diluted. Companies that fail to abide by these rules could face delisting from the Nasdaq.
The day before that report, Nasdaq proposed changes to its “initial and continued listing standards” that are intended to address “emerging patterns associated with potential pump-and-dump schemes in U.S. cross-market trading environments.” The proposals have been submitted to the SEC for approval.
Strategy’s official X account tweeted that the Nasdaq’s new treasury stance “doesn’t affect Strategy, our ATMs or our other capital market activities.” Strategy was already under fire for reneging on its pledge not to issue new MSTR shares if their mNAV (the share price multiple of the value of its BTC holdings) fell below 2.5x.
SharpLink Gaming (NASDAQ: SBET), which hoards the Ethereum network’s native token ETH rather than BTC, saw its shares take a sudden dip after the Nasdaq reports surfaced. While the shares have since regained much of that lost ground, the company was keen to push back against the idea that it had anything to fear from the new policies.
SharpLink’s official X account tweeted that the reports “may be referring to newer DATs [digital asset treasuries], some of which may not be able to meet existing Nasdaq requirements, and may be under heightened scrutiny.” SharpLink further claimed that it was “fully compliant with Nasdaq rules and does not require further shareholder approvals if we choose to execute our ATM program to fund ETH purchases.”
Back to the top ↑
VCs ride to treasuries’ rescue
The collective holdings of the top 100 public BTC treasury firms now top 1,000,000 tokens, nearly 5% of all the BTC that will ever be issued. Strategy holds nearly two-thirds of this sum, with runner-up MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) well back at 52,477 tokens.
Japan’s Metaplanet (JPX: 3350.T) is Sixth on the treasury list, which announced Monday that it had acquired another 136 BTC, pushing its total haul to 20,136 tokens. But unimpressed investors pushed the share price down 3.8% to ¥682 (US$4.62) on Monday, a low not seen since mid-May. Metaplanet’s shares are down nearly one-third over the past month.
Retail investors may be tiring of Metaplanet’s act, but help is on the way. On September 5, Taiwan-based venture capital group (and Metaplanet investor) Sora Ventures (NASDAQ: SORA) announced plans to raise $1 billion over the next six months to build “Asia’s first Bitcoin treasury fund.”
Citing Metaplanet and other regional treasuries, Sora says the fund is intended to serve as “a central pool of institutional capital designed to both support these existing firms and fuel the creation of similar treasuries globally.” Sora says its fund already has a $200 million commitment from its partners across the region to “create synergies between regional and international treasuries, strengthening Bitcoin’s role as a reserve asset across markets.”
Sora’s plan isn’t unique. On September 8, Hong Kong-based Hashkey Group announced plans to launch “Asia’s largest multi-currency DAT ecosystem fund for the global market.” The plan is to establish “an institutional bridge between traditional financial capital and on-chain assets, with a first-phase fundraising target exceeding USD 500 million.”
Hashkey, whose operations include digital asset exchanges of the same name, said it will “build a diversified portfolio by initiating and investing in a range of DAT projects focused on mainstream crypto assets, with an initial emphasis on ETH and BTC ecosystem projects.”
Hashkey’s announcement directly referenced the new Nasdaq treasury scrutiny, citing it as a sign that “the market is moving into a ‘survival of the fittest’ stage.” Hashkey’s new fund will serve as “a perpetual vehicle aligned with the long-term operational goals and liquidity needs of DAT, allowing for regular subscriptions and redemptions.”
Still another Asia-focused fund is looking to raise $100 million to make similar investments in treasury firms and other ‘blockstocks’, aka publicly traded blockchain companies. Representatives of Singapore-based advisory firm BlockSpaceForce and local fund manager Mainnet Capital told The Block the new fund had already invested in SharpLink, KindlyMD (NASDAQ: NAKA), and a few others focused on BTC, ETH, and the Solana network’s native token SOL.
So, deep-pocketed institutional investors would invest in a fund. That fund would invest in a listed company, and that company would buy tokens, and then retail investors would buy shares in that company. We’re not sure where Kevin Bacon fits into this scenario, but we’ve still got two moves left, so play on.
Back to the top ↑
Solana has a new treasury star
Stateside, Galaxy Digital, Multicoin Capital, market-makers Jump Crypto, and C/M Capital Partners announced Monday that they’ve made $1.65 billion in cash and stablecoin commitments to boost Forward Industries (NASDAQ: FORD), a medical design firm looking to start a SOL-focused treasury.
Given the history of most treasury firms, it is no surprise to learn that Forward Industries wasn’t thriving before this news. Forward’s most recent quarterly report showed a 50% year-on-year revenue decline and an operating loss of over $2.5 million. In June 2024, the company conducted a 1-for-10 reverse stock split in order to boost its share price and avoid delisting from the Nasdaq.
Forward’s shares nearly doubled following Monday’s announcement before closing up an impressive 58.5% to $25.96. The shares previously traded in the $4-$8 range for most of 2025.
Assuming all goes according to plan, Forward will become the largest SOL treasury, dethroning the previous champ Upexi (NASDAQ: UPXI), which currently boasts over two million SOL worth around $432 million. Upexi also engaged in a reverse stock split to avoid delisting in November 2024, when it was a struggling ‘recommerce’ firm.
Upexi’s SOL treasury launched in April, and its share price peaked around the same time at nearly $16.00. Upexi’s shares closed Monday at $5.66 (-6.3%). Will Forward Industries follow a similar rags-to-riches-to-rags trajectory?
Back to the top ↑
Failures not deterring newcomers
The Nasdaq’s new scrutiny comes too late for many investors who bought into treasury firms only to see the value of their shares tank. Semler Scientific (NASDAQ: SMLR), a struggling medical tech firm that launched its BTC treasury last year and ranks 18th on the list of corporate BTC treasuries, has seen its share price fall by over 47% since the year began. Semler shares closed Monday at $28.29, a fraction of their $81+ peak last December.
Semler’s most recent quarterly report shows revenue from its medical business of just $8.2 million, down 43% year-on-year, while expenses grew to $10.3 million (including $1.9 million in non-cash stock-based compensation). Semler currently holds 5,021 BTC, but the company said in June that it wants to double this total by year’s end and further boost that total to 105,000 by the time 2027 is done.
Before Nasdaq fired its warning shot, Semler’s planned massive accumulation of additional BTC was to be accomplished by “using proceeds from equity and debt financings and cash flows from operations.” Meanwhile, Semler’s mNAV slipped below 1x this summer and continues to track downward.
French semiconductor developer Sequans Communications (NYSE: SQNS), which ranks 24th on the BTC treasury list with 3,205 tokens, recently announced a reverse stock split that changed the ratio of its American Depositary Shares to its ordinary shares from 1:10 to 1:100.
Among the reasons Sequans cited for the split was that it “will help ensure continued compliance with NYSE listing requirements.” Sequans shares are down 74% since the year began, despite its August declaration that it wants to acquire 100,000 BTC by 2030.
And still they keep coming. The Sadot Group (NASDAQ: SDOT), a Texas-based sustainable food supply chain solutions provider, announced last week that it had engaged Bitcoin Bancorp Inc to “design and implement a cryptocurrency treasury strategy aimed at enhancing capital allocation, liquidity management and long-term shareholder value.”
Sadot’s shares have fallen 76% this year, and since late July, they have been trading under $1, putting the company at risk of delisting from the Nasdaq. The company narrowly avoided a net loss in its most recent quarterly earnings, which saw revenue fall by one-third year-on-year. Clearly, some dramatic move was needed to restore investor confidence, but only time will tell whether this treasury gambit proves to be Sadot’s salvation or accelerates its downward trajectory.
Back to the top ↑
The World in your hands
Some other struggling firms looking to stave off the inevitable are targeting lesser-known tokens in a bid to distinguish themselves from the herd. Take Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: OCTO), a Pennsylvania tech firm embracing a treasury plan based on Worldcoin, the controversial token associated with Sam Altman’s iris-scanning orb technology.
Eightco is looking to raise $250 million via a private placement with an additional $20 million commitment from BitMine Immersion Technologies (NASDAQ: BMNR), the largest ETH treasury firm, which boosted its haul to 2.069 million ETH over the weekend. Following the completion of this offering, Eightco’s Nasdaq ticker will change to (appropriately enough) ORBS.
After trading between $1-$1.50 most of the year, Eightco’s share price closed Monday at $45, up nearly 3,000% (not a typo) on the day. Totally sustainable.
Meanwhile, CleanCore Solutions (NYSE: ZONE), the eco-friendly cleaning products firm that made investors nervous last week with its plan to raise $175 million for a new DogeCoin (DOGE) treasury, saw its shares shoot up 40% in after-hours trading on Monday. The surge followed the company announcing that it had spent $68 million acquiring the first 285 million DOGE of its eventual target of acquiring one billion DOGE in 30 days.
While that surge sounds impressive, both its Monday closing price of $3.51 and its after-hours price of $4.91 are still well off the ~$7.00 the stock was worth before its original DOGE treasury announcement. Given that the shares tanked mightily after the initial announcement, then soared after the initial purchase, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the future holds. Will the surge continue as CleanCore draws down its cash and builds up its DOGE? Watch this space.
Back to the top ↑
Watch: Teranode is the digital backbone of Bitcoin
title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen=””>
Source: https://coingeek.com/paging-kevin-bacon-crypto-treasuries-degrees-of-separation/
