Penny Stocks Attempt to Ride Crypto's Coattails

Education tech firm Classover Holdings (KIDZ) said in early May that it would sell $400 million worth of shares to buy solana. Its stock exploded higher. Shares of the thinly traded company, then with a market cap well shy of $50 million soared from $1.15 to more than $7 in just two sessions before settling back to the current $3.69. .

Classover wasn’t the first company to experience the crypto surge, and it won’t be the last.

A growing number of obscure, microcap and nanocap companies are embracing cryptocurrency — not as a business line or payment method, but as a headline-grabbing balance sheet item. They often follow the same script: an announcement of a shift in strategy to hold digital assets like bitcoin or solana, followed by a pop in the stock price.

Today, GD Culture Group (GDC), a company with a market cap of around $30 million, announced plans to sell up to $300 million in shares to buy bitcoin and TrumpCoin (TRUMP), a meme token themed around U.S. President Donald Trump. The company declared that this purchase was part of its new “crypto asset treasury strategy.” The stock rose 13% on the news.

Also today, Amber International Holdings (AMBR), valued at just under $900 million, said it would allocate $100 million to a basket of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ethereum ETH$3 894,35, solana, XRP$2,3521, Binance Coin BNB$1 086,21 and sui SUI$2,4990.

All are attempting to mimic the original corporate crypto evangelist: Strategy (MSTR). In August 2020, the enterprise-software company pivoted to using bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. Since then, its stock has soared more than 3,000%, fueled not by software sales or product innovation, but the price of bitcoin. Many retail investors now treat the stock as a proxy for bitcoin exposure.

But while Strategy had a longstanding business and a consistent, transparent strategy — in addition to its chairman, Michael Saylor, emerging early as a bitcoin proponent — these newer companies appear to be leveraging the crypto hype machine with little track record or follow-through.

Take Worksport, a Nasdaq-listed manufacturer of truck bed covers. Last year, the company announced plans to invest its cash reserves into bitcoin and XRP. Its stock, which had been sliding for years, jumped after the announcement. But the rally didn’t last, and the stock has since returned to pre-announcement levels. The company said in April that it had made a six figure initial purchase.

“We are still bullish on our initial positions and have been holding. We will consider adding in the future as appropriate,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk at the time.

The playbook seems straightforward: Find a buzzy crypto token, announce a purchase or strategic allocation, then ride the temporary surge in retail investor attention. In many cases, the amount the company plans to invest vastly exceeds its own market capitalization. That was true for Classover and GD Culture, both of which proposed multi-hundred-million-dollar allocations despite being worth a fraction of that.

It’s unclear whether these companies will actually make their proposed purchases or how they plan to raise the funds. But the market’s reaction points to a pattern: Microcap firms are using crypto as a megaphone.

Still, the tactic is proving effective in the short term. As long as the market rewards crypto-related headlines with stock rallies, small companies are likely to continue jumping on the bandwagon.

Whether any of them become long-term crypto believers like Strategy remains to be seen.

There are, however, some firms that appear to be taking the Strategy route more seriously — and seeing results. Japanese investment firm Metaplanet has steadily grown its bitcoin holdings to 6,796 since launching its Bitcoin Treasury Operations in April 2024, positioning itself as one of the more committed corporate holders in Asia.

Similarly, U.S.-based medical device company Semler Scientific has been buying bitcoin consistently since adopting it as a reserve asset. It now holds 3,634 BTC on its balance sheet, reflecting a strategy that mirrors MicroStrategy’s playbook rather than simply borrowing its headlines.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.