(Reuters) -Trump Media & Technology Group and Crypto.com have said they will form a company that will pursue a treasury-style strategy to accumulate the cryptocurrency platform’s native token cronos, cementing the U.S. president’s ties to the industry.
Several up-and-coming crypto companies are doubling down on a generational boom in the industry in the United States, buoyed mainly by crypto-friendly regulations under the Donald Trump administration.
The new company, Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, will go public via a merger with blank-check firm Yorkville Acquisition Corp and be listed on the Nasdaq under the “MCGA” symbol.
After Tuesday’s announcement, the crypto token shot up 29.6% to $0.20, according to CoinGecko. Trump Media’s shares jumped 5.2% to $18.11, while Yorkville’s shares fell 2.4%.
Cronos has a market valuation of $6.8 billion, a fraction of the $3.88 trillion global crypto market cap, according to CoinGecko.
A handful of companies with sizable bitcoin or other cryptocurrency reserves have in recent months sought listings on U.S. exchanges through deals with Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, as markets valued bitcoin at a premium.
Cantor Fitzgerald launched a crypto venture in April with Tether and Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group to buy bitcoin called Cantor Equity Partners.
Funding for the latest crypto venture will consist of $1 billion in cronos token, $200 million cash, $220 million in warrants and an additional $5 billion equity line of credit from a Yorkville affiliate.
Meanwhile, Trump Media agreed to buy $105 million in cronos for its balance sheet, while Crypto.com said it would purchase $50 million of Trump Media’s common stock.
Trump Media, which runs U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social streaming and social media platform, said earlier this year it was partnering with Crypto.com to launch exchange-traded funds and products through its Truth.Fi brand.
A number of companies are seeking to replicate the success of Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, a software company that began accumulating bitcoin in 2020 and now holds more than $100 billion of the cryptocurrency. Its shares soared five-fold alongside bitcoin’s price in 2024.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
