The next stage of the continuing difficulties for digital asset treasury company (DAT) is fully upon markets as firms — many of whom after stock declines of 50%-98% are trading at levels far below the value of the crypto on their balance sheet — sell said crypto to fund share buybacks.
FG Nexus (FGNX), a DAT firm focused on Ethereum, said Thursday it had sold a chunk of its ether stash to repurchase stock.
The firm disclosed it has used proceeds from the sale of 10,922 ETH, roughly $33 million at current prices — along with $10 million in borrowed funds — to buy back 3.4 million of its shares. That amounts to about 8% of the outstanding float bought at an average price of $3.45, far below the reported NAV of $3.94 per share.
The news hit crypto prices, with ETH quickly sliding about 2% before a modest bounce. Bitcoin slipped about 1% as well, but has also clawed back some of that dip.
FG Nexus now holds around 40,000 ETH, along with $37 million in cash and USDC stablecoin, according to firm’s update.
The move underscores the growing pressure on DATs, many of whose stock prices have plunged below the net asset value of their underlying crypto holdings. Fellow ETH treasury firm ETHZilla sold roughly $40 million of tokens last month to repurchase shares.
Share buyback programs offer one way to close that gap, but they also raise questions about how long such firms can sustain operations while liquidating core assets.
“We plan to continue buying back shares while our stock trades below NAV, which creates increasingly asymptotic effect on our per-share valuation metrics as the number of shares outstanding declines and net asset value per share increases,” chairman and CEO Kyle Cerminara said is a statement.
FGNX shares were up 2% in the early minutes of the Thursday session, but remain lower by more than 95% from last summer’s peak.
