Shares in the marketing firm Asset Entities (ASST) rose 52% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after its shareholders approved a merger with Vivek Ramaswamy’s Strive Enterprises to form a Bitcoin treasury company.
Asset Entities said on Tuesday that a “strong majority” of shareholders voted for the merger with plans to raise $1.5 billion to buy Bitcoin (BTC). The new company will be renamed to Strive, Inc. and continue trading under the ticker ASST.
Asset Entities shares closed trading on Tuesday up 17.8% at $6.28 and rallied over 52% after-hours to $9.55 on the company’s merger announcement.
Matt Cole, the CEO of Strive Enterprise subsidiary Strive Asset Management, will lead the combined company, while Asset Entities CEO and president Arshia Sarkhani will serve as chief marketing officer and board member.
It isn’t clear what role Ramaswamy, Strive’s co-founder, will have in the newly merged company.
The new firm is the latest addition to the 186 public companies reporting large-scale Bitcoin buys, which has grown from less than 100 at the start of the year and sparked concerns of an oversaturated market.
Strive tries reverse-merger for $1.5 billion Bitcoin buys
The trend of public crypto-buying companies has fueled Bitcoin’s price rally to $124,450 as companies tap equity, convertible debt, perpetual stock, and, more recently, Special Purpose Acquisition mergers to fund their plans.
Strive opted for a reverse-merger structure, which is considered safer than the faster-paced SPACs as it relies less on speculative capital raises, dilution, and uncertain deal timelines.
Strive plans to fund its $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchases with $750 million from a Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE), plus another $750 million that could come from the exercise of warrants issued in the PIPE.
The $1.5 billion planned raise would allow the company to buy 13,450 Bitcoin at current market prices, putting it in the top 10 largest corporate Bitcoin holding companies.
The merger’s closing is contingent upon certain conditions, including clearance of Strive’s listing application by The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC.
Strive had its eyes on Mt. Gox Bitcoin
When the merger was announced in May, Strive said it was looking to acquire 75,000 Bitcoin from claims tied to the collapsed crypto exchange Mt. Gox to buy the asset at a discount.
Strive said the strategy could help boost its Bitcoin-per-share ratio, a measure increasingly used in the Bitcoin treasury space.
However, a successful shareholder vote is needed to pursue the Mt. Gox claims.
Related: Eric Trump scaling back role at crypto firm ALT5 Sigma
Strive has accumulated $2 billion in assets since it was launched in 2022 by Anson Frericks and Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for president last year and is running for governor of Ohio next year.
Asset Entities is a social media marketing firm that had no active involvement in Bitcoin or the crypto industry prior to the announced merger with Strive.
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