Ex-biotech company pivots to crypto and buys $30M in Toncoin

AlphaTON Capital, a former biotech company, has rebranded as a digital asset treasury (DAT). The company announced the completion of its first $30 million Toncoin purchase on Thursday.

AlphaTON has become one of the largest holders of Toncoin (TON), the native token of The Open Network. The company said its goal is to grow its Toncoin treasury to $100 million by the end of 2025.

AlphaTON wants to invest $100M in Toncoin

The Nasdaq-listed company closed a $71 million financing round back in early September. The financing round included a $36.2 million private placement of 6.32 million shares. In addition, AlphaTON secured a $35 million loan facility with BitGo Prime.

The ex-biotech company stated that it aims to acquire $100 million worth of Toncoin (TON). In the release, AlphaTon announced, 

“A financing to acquire ~$100 million TON tokens and establish a specialized digital asset treasury company dedicated to building a strategic TON reserve and providing public markets access to Telegram’s rapidly expanding ecosystem of more than a billion monthly active users.”

Beyond accumulating Toncoin, AlphaTon wants to generate yield revenue via blockchain validation and staking rewards. The new DAT also wants to back projects within Telegram’s mini-app and DeFi ecosystems. 

AlphaTon has strategic crypto partners and advisors, including BitGo, Animoca Brands, Kraken, SkyBridge Capital, and Crypto.com, among others. The company is led by CEO Brittany Kaiser, a former director at Gryphon Digital Mining. Executive Chairman Enzo Villani, co-founder of Nasdaq Global Corporate Solutions, is also part of AlphaTon’s leadership.

Kaiser said, “Today marks a pivotal moment in AlphaTON Capital’s journey as we officially establish ourselves as a premier digital asset treasury company with substantial TON holdings.”

AlphaTon is following in the footsteps of Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin strategy playbook, but through Toncoin. The Nasdaq-listed firm is copying Ton Strategy, which is another firm that accumulated more than $700 million in TON last month. 

AlphaTON’s stock closed at $5.77 on Friday. The stock slipped by around 9.8% from the previous session based on data from Yahoo Finance.

On the other hand, Toncoin (TON) is currently trading at $2.75. The token has a 24-hour trading volume of $139.9 million and a market capitalization of $6.99 billion based on aggregated data from CoinGecko. 

Toncoin surged massively during Telegram’s mini-game boom in 2024. The token recorded an all-time high of $8.25 but has since fallen about 60% from its peak. The coin now ranks 32nd by market cap.