Shares of GD Culture Group, a Nasdaq-listed livestreaming and e-commerce company, tumbled 28% on Tuesday after unveiling a share-swap deal to acquire all assets of Pallas Capital Holding, including 7,500 Bitcoin.
Under the agreement, GD Culture will issue about 39.2 million common shares in exchange for Pallas Capital’s assets, valued at roughly $875.4 million in Bitcoin. The transaction was finalized last Wednesday.
CEO and chairman Xiaojian Wang said the acquisition would “directly support” the company’s goal of building a “strong and diversified crypto asset reserve,” while positioning it to benefit from Bitcoin’s growing institutional adoption as a reserve asset and store of value.
GD Culture, which uses artificial intelligence to create digital personas and operates livestreaming and e-commerce businesses on TikTok, would become the 14th-largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder following the deal—joining a growing cohort of companies accumulating cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin treasury firms have boomed in 2025, with more than 190 publicly traded companies now holding the asset—nearly double the fewer than 100 at the start of the year. The sector has swelled to $112.8 billion, largely dominated by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which controls 68% of the market.
Still, momentum has slowed in recent weeks as investors question whether the model of raising capital, converting it into Bitcoin, and simply holding for appreciation can hold up long term.
GD Culture stock sinks
Shares of GD Culture Group (GDC) slid 28.16% on Tuesday to $6.99, according to Google Finance. The stock regained some ground in after-hours trading, climbing 3.7%.
The drop marked GDC’s steepest single-day fall in more than a year, cutting its market cap to $117.4 million. The company’s stock is now down 97% from its all-time high of $235.8, reached on Feb. 19, 2021.
Issuing new shares to fund acquisitions often sparks negative market reactions, as it dilutes existing shareholders’ stakes.
On June 16, VanEck cautioned that companies using stock sales or debt to buy Bitcoin risk eroding capital if their share prices decline. In such cases, the value of their Bitcoin holdings may not be sufficient to support further investments without hurting current shareholders.
“As some of these firms raise capital through large at-the-market (ATM) programs to purchase BTC, a risk is emerging: If the stock trades at or near NAV [net asset value], continued equity issuance can dilute rather than create value,” VanEck’s head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel, said at the time.
GD Culture eyes Bitcoin and Trump token
GD Culture first unveiled its crypto treasury strategy in May, announcing plans to sell up to $300 million of common stock to invest in digital assets, including Bitcoin and President Donald Trump’s Official Trump token.
The offering came just weeks after the company received a noncompliance notice from Nasdaq for failing to meet the exchange’s minimum stockholder equity requirement of $2.5 million.
