Trump Media & Technology Group and Crypto.com on Tuesday agreed to a deal with a blank-check acquisition company to launch a new venture that will pursue a treasury-style strategy to accumulate the cryptocurrency platform's native token CRO, deepening the ties of US President Donald Trump to the industry.
The two companies are the latest to seek to incorporate the playbook of Michael Saylor's Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, a software company that began accumulating bitcoin in 2020. The company's bitcoin holdings are now worth about $100 billion, based on current prices. Its shares soared fivefold alongside bitcoin's price in 2024.
Trump Media shares were up 6.6 per cent at $18.36 on Tuesday afternoon.
The new company, Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, will go public via a merger with blank-check firm Yorkville Acquisition Corp and be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol MCGA.
Following the announcement, the CRO token shot up 29.6 per cent to 20 cents, according to CoinGecko. Yorkville's shares were down 2.2 per cent at $10.42.
Cronos has a market value of $6.8 billion, a fraction of the $3.9 trillion global crypto market cap, according to CoinGecko. Trump Media, which runs Donald Trump's Truth Social streaming and social media platform, said earlier this year it was partnering with Crypto.com to launch exchange-traded funds and products through its Truth.Fi brand.
"By anchoring Truth Social’s rewards economy and corporate reserves in CRO, Trump Media is effectively institutionalizing the token. At the same time, it marks another example of a corporate entity treating a native token as part of its treasury strategy," said Alice Liu, head of research at crypto data provider CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin treasury boom
The latest move from Trump Media comes weeks after holders of digital tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, one of the crypto ventures of the Trump family, voted to make them tradable, paving the way for their wide sale and purchase - a deal that potentially boosted the value of the president's holdings. The crypto industry has lately been booming in the U.S., buoyed in part by friendly regulations under the Trump administration. On Tuesday, digital asset manager Canary Capital filed to list an exchange-traded fund tracking the price of the $TRUMP meme coin, the crypto token whose fortunes are tied to Trump.
Deals similar to Trump Media's CRO venture have also been occurring in recent months by a handful of other companies with sizable reserves of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
Most companies have followed a similar strategy of seeking listings on U.S. exchanges through deals with Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, as markets have valued bitcoin at a premium. In April, a blank-check firm backed by Cantor Fitzgerald teamed up with Tether and Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group to create a $3.6 billion company focused on accumulating bitcoin.
Funding for the Trump Media crypto venture will consist of $1 billion in Cronos tokens, $200 million in cash, $220 million in warrants, and an additional $5 billion equity line of credit from a Yorkville affiliate.
Trump Media also agreed to buy $105 million in Cronos for its balance sheet, while Crypto.com said it would purchase $50 million of Trump Media's common stock. Separately on Tuesday, investment firm 1789 Capital, which was launched by former Bank of America executive Omeed Malik and counts Donald Trump Jr. as a partner, agreed to invest in predictions market platform Polymarket. As part of the deal, Trump Jr. is joining Polymarket's advisory board.
