It’s a whole new world?
Shares of Eightco Holdings, a relatively unknown company that runs an inventory-management platform among other things, increased by more than 4,000% on Monday after it announced a $250 million private placement to adopt a buying strategy to purchase Worldcoin.
It is the latest small publicly traded company to pivot to a digital-asset treasury in the hopes that the value of the tokens increases over time. Here’s what to know about the news.
What is Worldcoin?
Worldcoin is the native crypto token for the World blockchain, launched by OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Eightco also announced Dan Ives, an analyst who previously worked at Wedbush Securities, as its new chairman.
Eightco’s offering, per its release, is expected to close by the end of the week. It also announced plans to change its ticker from “OCTO” to “ORBS.” The change is pending approval by the Nasdaq exchange, where shares of Eightco are traded.
How has Eightco Holdings stock reacted?
The news sent Eightco’s stock price skyrocketing. After closing at $1.45 a share on Friday, the stock peaked at $83.23 in midday trading on Monday.
As of roughly 1:30 pm ET, shares were trading for around $64, about a 4,334% increase.
What does Eightco actually do?
The Florida-based company was spun off from Vinco Ventures in 2022 and was previously called Cryptyde.
According to its most recent annual financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Eightco initially comprised three core business units: Web3, Bitcoin mining hardware, and corrugated packaging.
In 2022, it acquired Forever 8, which offers funding for e-commerce businesses that sell on Amazon and other platforms.
What else is there to know?
Digital asset treasuries have become increasingly common this year, although the extent to which they will pay off remains as speculative as the broader crypto market. Notably, Trump Media, parent company of the president’s Truth Social platform, announced plans in May to build a vast Bitcoin reserve with $2.5 billion from institutional investors.
In addition to its Worldcoin treasury strategy, Eightco Holdings also announced on Monday a $20 million strategic investment from BitMine Immersion.
BitMine, a blockchain mining and hosting company, is also publicly traded and has seen its share prices increase by almost 683% over the past six months. The investment appears to be a bet on the long-term viability of Ethereum—and the crypto space as a whole—according to company leadership.
“BitMine wants to support and back innovative projects that create value for the Ethereum network. As an ERC-20 native token, World is aligned with Ethereum,” said Tom Lee, BitMine’s chairman, in a statement.
The value of Worldcoin itself likewise saw a pump today, jumping from roughly $1 as of 9 p.m. ET Sunday night to more than $1.50 as of midday Monday.
This story is developing. . .
