Crypto Currents: Trump Media, Crypto.com form CRO digital asset treasury

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TRUMP MEDIA, CRYPTO.COM FORM CRO TREASURY: Yorkville Acquisition Corp. (YORK), Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) and Crypto.com announced Tuesday they have entered into a definitive agreement for a business combination to establish Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, a digital asset treasury company focused on acquisition of the native cryptocurrency token of the Cronos ecosystem. At the close of the combination, Trump Media Group CRO Strategy will be majority-owned by Yorkville, Trump Media, and Crypto.com, together as founding partners. Expected funding for the digital asset treasury will consist of $1B in CRO, $200M in cash and $220M cash-in mandatory exercise warrants, with an additional $5B equity line of credit from an affiliate of Yorkville, YA II PN, which would make it the first and largest publicly traded CRO treasury company. YA II PN has also entered into a backstop agreement to purchase Class A ordinary shares of Yorkville Acquisition, capped at no more than 9.9% beneficial ownership of the shares, that are validly submitted for redemption by public shareholders and not withdrawn prior to the closing of the Business Combination. Yorkville Acquisition will apply to have its Class A ordinary shares trade on Nasdaq under the symbol “MCGA”, with such change to occur prior to the combination and the new symbol to transfer to Trump Media Group CRO Strategy upon the closing.

“Financial markets are becoming increasingly digital every day, and companies of all sizes and sectors are strategically planning for the future by establishing digital asset treasuries anchored by assets that have created a comprehensive value proposition and are poised for even greater utility,” said Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media. “We continue to be bullish on cryptocurrency, and we are excited to be partnering with a leading global cryptocurrency platform and namesake of its industry in Crypto.com and one of the most sophisticated investor groups in Yorkville for this strategic initiative.”

Additionally on Tuesday, Trump Media announced it signed a mutual cooperation agreement and a purchase agreement creating a strategic partnership with Crypto.com. According to the agreement, Trump Media will introduce a rewards system on the Truth Social and Truth+ platforms that uses the Crypto.com digital wallet infrastructure and that adopts the Cronos digital currency as a utility token. The companies’ purchase agreement establishes that Trump Media will purchase approximately $105M in CRO for its balance sheet and Crypto.com will purchase $50M in shares of common stock in Trump Media, both subject to a lockup period. Trump Media will secure its CRO with Crypto.com Custody service, which will enable Trump Media to stake it for additional revenue generation.

STRATEGY BUYS MORE BITCOIN: In a Monday regulatory filing, Strategy (MSTR) disclosed that the company acquired 3,081 bitcoin for an aggregate purchase price of $356.9M during the period of August 18 to August 24. The company’s aggregate bitcoin holdings amount to 632,457 as of August 24, the filing stated.

IREN REPORTS FY25 EARNINGS: IREN (IREN) reported fiscal year 2025 results on Thursday, with a revenue of $501M, which compared to a revenue of $187.2M for the same period last year. Bitcoin mining revenue totaled $484.6M compared to $184.1M last year.

“FY25 was a breakout year financially and operationally, with record results that included strong net income and more than 10x EBITDA growth,” said Daniel Roberts, Co-CEO. “We expanded our contracted, grid-connected power to nearly 3GW, more than tripled operating data center capacity to 810MW, and completed our 50 EH/s expansion – all while laying the foundation for rapid growth in our AI Cloud business to more than 10,000 NVIDIA (NVDA) GPUs. Looking ahead, our vertical integration uniquely positions us to deliver across the entire AI infrastructure stack – from powered shells to turnkey colocation to fully managed cloud services – and we are advancing a range of additional commercial opportunities while executing on near-term growth.”

IREN also announced Thursday that it has secured NVIDIA Preferred Partner status and procured an additional 1.2k air-cooled NVIDIA B300s and 1.2k liquid-cooled NVIDIA GB300s for approximately $168M, expanding its total GPU fleet to 10.9k NVIDIA GPUs.

Following the report, Canaccord raised the firm’s price target on IREN to $37 from $23 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company’s fiscal Q4 report shows accelerating progress across its artificial intelligence portfolio with continued benefits on the mining side of the business, the analyst said. The firm sees IREN’s power assets continuing to accelerate, driven by graphics processing unit purchases and becoming a Nvidia preferred partner.

Meanwhile, Roth Capital raised the firm’s price target on IREN to $35 from $26 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company is leaning into full-stack AI Cloud while keeping optionality for high-performance compute co-location, allowing it to flexibly meet demand across its portfolio, the analyst tells said. IREN has proven execution and retains about 3GW+ power flexibility to meet whichever demand reflects the best ROI without committing to one single model, the firm added.

Additionally, B. Riley raised the firm’s price target on IREN to $29 from $22 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company is increasingly focused on scaling its artificial intelligence cloud business and growing GPU capacity to 10,000 units by year-end, the analyst said. The firm views IREN’s dual strategy as “prudent positioning” that establishes the company as a flexible infrastructure platform across the AI compute spectrum.

HUT 8 TO DEVELOP FOR NEW U.S. SITES: Hut 8 Corp. (HUT) announced Tuesday plans to develop four new sites across the United States. The expansion positions the company to meet growing demand from energy-intensive use cases while scaling and diversifying its platform across strategic energy markets. Upon commercialization of the sites, Hut 8 expects its platform to exceed 2.5 gigawatts of capacity under management across 19 sites. In connection with the expansion, Hut 8 is reclassifying 1,530 megawatt of capacity related to these sites from Capacity Under Exclusivity into a new category: Capacity Under Development.

“This expansion marks a defining step in Hut 8’s evolution into one of the largest energy and digital infrastructure platforms in the world,” said Asher Genoot, CEO. “By advancing more than 1.5 gigawatts of capacity from exclusivity into development, we position ourselves to more than double the scale of our platform and address accelerating demand across energy-intensive use cases. In addition to driving scale, this expansion is designed to broaden our geographic footprint as we seek to capture opportunities in markets where we see energy demand rising most rapidly. Importantly, it represents just the first phase of execution against a multi-gigawatt energy origination pipeline that underpins our long-term growth trajectory.”

Following the report, Clear Street raised the firm’s price target on Hut 8 to $33 from $23 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm is positive on the company’s expansion of its development pipeline and increased high-performance compute optionality, the analyst said. Clear Street added that this week, Hut 8 advanced four new U.S. sites totaling 1.53 GW into development more than doubling its platform potential to 2.5 GW across 19 sites, calling it a transformative step that enhances its scale and accelerates the pivot toward diversified energy and digital infrastructure with AI/HPC upside.

GALAXY, MULTICOIN, JUMP LOOK TO RAISE $1B: Galaxy Digital (GLXY), Multicoin Capital, and Jump Crypto are in discussions with potential backers about raising approximately $1B to obtain Solana, Bloomberg’s Ryan Weeks reported Monday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The three firms have secured Cantor Fitzgerald as the deal’s lead banker and aim to create a digital asset treasury company by taking over a publicly traded entity. The deal would create a reserve more than double the size of the current largest one focused on Solana. The transaction is expected to be completed in early September, the sources added.

OTHER CRYPTO NEWS:

• TeraWulf (WULF) price target raised to $15 from $12 at Northland
• Finastra, Circle (CRCL) partner to bring stablecoin settlement to cross-border payments
• Hive Digital (HIVE) price target raised to $7.50 from $6 at Roth Capital
• Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) announces crypto, cash holdings exceeding $8.82B
• Greenidge Generation (GREE) reports termination of agreement to sell South Carolina property
• Canaan (CAN) receives new purchase order from Bitfury Group

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital (BTBT), Coinbase (COIN), Core Scientific (CORZ), Greenidge Generation, Mara Holdings (MARA), Strategy, Riot Platforms (RIOT) and TeraWulf.

PRICE ACTION: As time of writing, bitcoin dropped roughly 5% this week to $110,304 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.