Investors reversed course and sold shares of Trump Media & Technology on Tuesday after the media company confirmed a report that it was selling stock to invest in bitcoin.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT”, fell 9% in morning trading, after rallying by a double-digit percentage in premarket trade.
The company said it plans to sell $1.5 billion in common stock and issue another $1 billion in convertible stock and use the proceed to create a bitcoin treasury.
The Financial Times earlier had reported the company was planning to raise $3 billion to buy cryptocurrencies.
“One of the largest bitcoin treasury deals of any public company, the move closes Trump Media’s previously announced special acquisition fund, which is one of numerous ways, including through potential mergers and acquisitions, that the company is aiming to expand its reach throughout the America First economy,” the Sarasota, Fla.-based company said in a statement.
The common stock offering will be priced at the last market price, while the convertible will have a conversion price equal to a 35% premium.
The crypto strategy is reminiscent of one adopted successfully by Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, which trades at a premium to its underlying bitcoin holdings. That plan can work so long as bitcoin keeps rising in value.
Investor John Arnold, in a social-media post, said the financial-market boost companies see from buying bitcoin doesn’t make sense.
“I’ve seen a lot of dumb stuff in my investing career but the ‘arb’ that exists in publicly traded companies buying BTC when ETFs already exist is as dumb as anything,” he said in a post on the X social-media platform.
That the company buying bitcoin uses leverage doesn’t justify the premium, he added.
“The leverage is low. You can lever an ETF yourself. There is no platform value because the barrier to entry is nil,” said Arnold.
The Trump social-media company’s underlying business at the moment has little value — in the first quarter, the company lost $31.7 million on revenue of less than $1 million. Its market valuation, however, was $5.7 billion.