(Bloomberg) – Companies rebranding themselves as cryptocurrency firms aren’t the only ones benefiting from bitcoin mania.
Crypto Co. today disclosed a private stock sale to accredited investors at $7 per share, a 97 percent discount to yesterday’s closing price of $223. Investors typically expect a discount in exchange for participating in these sales, but a markdown of this magnitude is rare if not unprecedented.
“It looks funny when you’re sitting here like this,” said Michael Poutre, chief executive of Malibu, California-based Crypto, which is investing in and trading digital assets, and developing source code for managing them, according to its regulatory filings. “But it seemed very reasonable at the time.”
The $7 offering price was communicated to potential buyers weeks ago – before the stock surged more than 3,000 percent to its $642 peak on Dec. 11, Poutre said in a phone interview. Crypto is the product of a reverse merger with a company that made water and radio-wave resistant sports bra pockets, according to a November filing.