A struggling tech firm that relies on TikTok, and with ties to China, announced it had secured funding to buy $300 million of $TRUMP, the cryptocurrency marketed by President Donald Trump.

GD Culture Group, a publicly traded firm with a Chinese subsidiary and only eight employees, as its public filings show, recorded zero revenue last year from an e-commerce business it operates on TikTok, a Chinese-owned video-sharing app.

The firm announced plans to spend $300 million on a stockpile of bitcoin and $TRUMP, using proceeds from a stock sale to an unnamed entity in the British Virgin Islands, a popular tax haven.

Any purchase by GD Culture Group would be the first known example of a China-linked firm buying Trump’s meme coin. In its financial disclosures, the company has noted that its subsidiary, Shanghai Xianzhui, might be influenced by demands from the Chinese government, though that is not unusual wording for a Chinese firm.

“The Chinese government may intervene or influence its operations at any time,” the company said.

New York Times News Service