DJT shares drop after Trump Media announces bitcoin raise

LAS VEGAS — Trump Media on Tuesday announced a $2.5 billion raise from institutional investors to bankroll one of the largest bitcoin treasury allocations by a public company.

Shares of the company closed 10% lower Tuesday.

It’s the latest and most ambitious move in the company’s evolution from a free-speech social platform to a financial services player.

The deal includes $1.5 billion in common stock and $1 billion in convertible notes, with proceeds earmarked for the purchase of bitcoin, which the company will now hold as a core treasury asset. The company said it has subscription agreements with about 50 institutional investors.

The company also confirmed the bitcoin will be held with Anchorage Digital and Crypto.com — the same platform that recently signed a deal to help Trump Media launch its first exchange-traded funds.

The announcement comes as bitcoin nears record highs and the year’s biggest gathering of digital asset enthusiasts gets underway on the Las Vegas Strip: Bitcoin 2025. The conference helped solidify President Donald Trump’s image as the country’s first “crypto president.”

This year, it’s a full-court press from the Trump White House at the conference, with Vice President JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, crypto czar David Sacks, and other top officials attending.

Trump Media’s stock remains volatile, with shares down nearly 30% this year so far. The company has a market cap of about $5.3 billion, despite reporting just $3.6 million in revenue and a $400 million loss in 2024.

Trump indirectly owns more than 114 million shares of Trump Media through a revocable trust.

Devin Nunes, the company’s CEO and a former California congressman, called bitcoin an “apex instrument of financial freedom” and said this was just the first of many “crown jewel” acquisitions the firm would pursue.

He framed the move as a defensive strategy, saying it would help protect the company from what he described as ongoing “discrimination by financial institutions” against conservative businesses.

The firm has already signed a partnership with Crypto.com to bring a series of ETFs and digital asset products to market later this year, pending regulatory approval.

Those funds will include baskets of crypto such as bitcoin and Crypto.com’s native token, cronos, alongside traditional securities. They will be branded under Trump Media and offered to global investors across major brokerage platforms and on the Crypto.com app, which has more than 140 million users worldwide.

The move deepens Trump’s crypto footprint: World Liberty Financial, another Trump-affiliated entity, has already amassed a significant crypto stockpile, and the president signed an executive order earlier this year designed to establish a bitcoin reserve and a separate crypto stockpile for the federal government.

The expansion into financial services builds on rising Republican anger over perceived banking discrimination against conservatives.

Crypto industry leaders have also been testifying on Capitol Hill about the industry’s struggle with debanking during President Joe Biden’s administration.

Trump himself voiced frustration with Bank of America and JPMorgan executives during a recent appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, accusing them of “locking out” conservative clients.

The launch of Truth.Fi, along with the growing popularity of Trump-linked cryptocurrencies, appears to be the private sector response.

The $2.5 billion bitcoin treasury move also follows a growing trend among politically aligned businesses that are converting their corporate treasuries into bitcoin-heavy vehicles. It’s a strategy popularized by Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy in 2020 — but now turbocharged by Trump’s political movement and crypto allies.

Jack Mallers is looking to rival Strategy with a new bitcoin company backed by Tether and SoftBank, and David Bailey, the architect behind another Trump-linked bitcoin play — Nakamoto Holdings — recently led a $710 million merger with health-care firm KindlyMD, which will pivot from holistic opioid recovery to a crypto-first strategy.

Bailey, a trusted crypto advisor to the Trump administration, described the play as: “Strategy, squared.”

“Our total focus is on increasing the bitcoin per share,” Bailey previously told CNBC, outlining plans to acquire bitcoin-native companies across every major capital market.

WATCH: Jack Mallers looks to rival Strategy with new bitcoin company backed by Tether and SoftBank