The wind of listed companies buying coins has blown on AI altcoins

Original Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

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Since MicroStrategy took the lead in adding Bitcoin (BTC) to its asset reserves in 2020, more and more U.S.-listed companies and even global companies have followed suit, and coin holding has become an obvious trend of stock currency circle.

As of 2025, the number of companies holding crypto assets has surged from the initial single digits to dozens.

However, this trend of corporate coin ownership has diverged into a number of different currents:

Bitcoin is still a safe choice with its strongest consensus; Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) have also attracted a lot of followers due to their widely recognised foundations;

Now, the wind is blowing even into the lesser altcoin space, such as Fetch.ai's $FET and Bittensor's $TAO in the AI sector.

Historically, ETH fell by about 26.7% in a single day in June 2022, SOL fell by 43% due to the bankruptcy of FTX in November 2022, and the vulnerability of AI coins is even more obvious - for example, the advent of the DeepSeek open-source AI model has triggered a collective retreat of AI Agent tokens on the market chain. FET and TAO, which have a larger market cap, have volatility of about 15% and 18% respectively over the past 30 days.

Is it feasible for listed companies to allocate these more volatile altcoins?

Who's laying out AI coins?

To answer this question, let's look at which companies are already deploying these AI tokens, as well as the strategies and risks behind them.

Interactive Strength (TRNR): Buy FET, Fitness + AI The Great Leap

Interactive Strength is a NASDAQ-listed company that sells professional fitness equipment and related digital fitness services, and owns two brands, CLMBR and Forme.

In layman's terms, it is by selling hardware equipment such as fitness mirrors and climbing machines, supplemented by supporting fitness classes and digital platforms.

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latest data from > shows that the company has a market capitalisation of about $8.4 million.

On June 11, the company announced plans to invest $500 million in $FET tokens as a crypto strategic reserve, which the company plans to use to power AI-powered fitness products.

CEO Ward said the choice of FET over a more widely held asset such as Bitcoin reflects the company's plans to incorporate Fetch.ai's technology into its product offerings.

To date, Interactive Strength has raised $55 million in start-up funding from ATW Partners and DWF Labs.

The source of the funds is the so-called "securities purchase agreement", which simply means that the company sells shares to the above-mentioned investors for cash, and the purchased FET tokens are held by BitGo, a professional custodian; In addition, the trading method was to buy FET directly from the market instead of over-the-counter (OTC).

ATW Partners, a private equity giant, and DWF Labs, are veteran market makers in the crypto world, so why are they willing to pay for it?

The answer may lie in the bundle of interests.

ATW is interested in TRNR's fitness + AI story, and DWF also has a need for market-making $FET.

DWF Labs received 10 million FETs from Fetch.ai in September 2024, then deposited those FETs into the exchange and made a market making of the FETs.

After all, if the $500 million is in place now, you can buy about 6.41 million $FET (calculated at the current price of $0.78 per coin), and buying it directly in the market may have a positive impact on the price in the short term.

After the news was announced, the market bought it.

TRNR's stock price rose 15% on the 11th, and $FET also rose 7%, and has retreated so far.

But like some previous companies that bought ETH, the company's total market capitalisation is only $8.4 million, and it is not easy to raise 500 million to buy FET, and the stock price has to be raised step by step. If the market cools down or the $FET ecosystem fails, the money may be wasted.

In the short term, this move is like a big gamble; In the long run, success or failure may depend on whether there is room for the AI fitness business to land.

Synaptogenix (SNPX): Buy TAO, Biotech Company Turns Over

Big GuysSynaptogenix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing products based on Bryostatin-1, primarily for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. The company has a market capitalisation of just $5 million.

On June 9, the company announced an initial investment of $10 million in Bittensor's $TAO tokens, with plans to gradually increase to $100 million in purchases.

As for the funding, it will initially come from the company's existing cash reserves, which will be supplemented in the future through a $550 million private placement of Series D convertible preferred stock. Similar to the micro-strategy, the SNPX attracts institutional capital (hedge funds or family offices) by initially holding preferred shares (with fixed dividends) and converting them into common shares when the stock price reaches an agreed price under certain conditions.

The trader behind this transaction is James Altucher, a well-known figure in the investment circle.

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James is a high-profile entrepreneur, investor, and best-selling author who has founded or invested in more than 20 companies across the technology, finance, and media sectors; He was also a hedge fund manager and was involved in early-stage investments in several startups.

Back before Bitcoin was widely accepted, James publicly touted the potential of blockchain technology and became an early proponent in the space. During the crypto boom of 2017, he was known as the "Bitcoin Prophet" for his massive online advertising.

In SNPX's business, he is responsible for developing and executing the $TAO investment strategy. Specifically, he has led the token purchase program, including the option to select staged market purchases to optimise costs, and the screening of Bittensor subnets (such as Subnet 1, which focuses on machine learning tasks) for staking in pursuit of more yield.

Recently, he has also been sharing the logic of trading SNPX to buy TAO on X, and bluntly said that buying SNPX shares is equivalent to buying TAO at half price.

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key to the addition of > bigwigs is to attract institutional investors to SNPX's transformation through network access to private equity funds.

In terms of the company's motivations, the motivation for this transformation stems from the bottlenecks in the biopharma business. The clinical data of the brijostatin therapy did not meet expectations, the prospect of FDA approval is uncertain, and the company's stock price has been depressed for a long time.

SNPX hopes to grow its assets by holding $TAO and staking rewards, and public sources indicate that it even plans to rename the company and ticker symbol to strengthen its AI token positioning.

SNPX's share price rose as much as 40% after the announcement of the 9th, reflecting the market's short-term optimism about the transition.

However, the initial investment of $10 million has more than doubled the company's market capitalisation, and if the $TAO price falls below $300, the value of the asset could shrink by more than 25%, and the financial risk is significant.

success of the $550 million private placement also depends heavily on James Altucher's appeal and market sentiment, and if funding is not forthcoming, the transformation may be interrupted. The yield of staking $TAO is not volatile compared to the 18% volatility of the $TAO token over a 30-day period.

This is clearly a high-risk, high-reward turnaround.

Oblong (OBLG): Buy TAO, a cautious layout in the IT

sectorOblong, Inc. (NASDAQ: OBLG) is a technology service provider focused on IT solutions and video collaboration technology, and its core product, Mezzanine, is a platform that supports multi-user, multi-device visual collaboration, which is widely used in enterprise conferencing and remote collaboration; The company's market capitalisation is around $5.3 million.

On June 6, Oblong announced that it had raised $7.5 million through a private placement to purchase Bittensor's $TAO tokens and participate in its Subnet 0 staking program.

Oblong shares rose 12% at one point after the announcement, but had fallen back to $4.04 at press time.

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The placement involves the sale of approximately 1.98 million shares of common stock or its equivalent priced at $3.77 per share, which is below the current market price. This also means that the company sells shares at a certain discount to attract investors.

Funds of this magnitude, calculated at the current price, can buy about 1890 $TAO tokens, which is not much.

However, you can see this purchase of TAO as a strategic shift from a traditional IT business to an AI and digital asset space.

Video conferencing solutions are a volatile area, and the company's Mezzanine platform, which has some market in video collaboration, has seen revenue growth slow by about 5% since 2023, largely driven by competing software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

According to the company's CEO, Peter Holst, the intersection of AI and blockchain is key to future innovation, and $TAO is seen as a potential asset for crypto AI infrastructure, similar to Bitcoin's early institutional adoption phase.

At the same time, the company plans to realise asset appreciation through holding $TAO and staking rewards, while exploring the development of Bittensor-based software tools, such as AI-powered meeting assistance features.

However, Subnet 0 in the TAO subnet mainly focuses on AI directions such as text prompt tasks (such as natural language processing), and Oblong chose this subnet for staking, saying that it is directly related to the video conferencing business, which is a bit far-fetched, and is more about the consideration of staking income and statement.

This layout is more of a strategic test of the waters and testing the long-term potential of AI tokens.

with both risk and return

has expanded from a single asset to a diversified option.

But with the exception of BTC, altcoins are significantly more volatile than BTC. In the case of TRNR, its $8.4 million market capitalisation plans to raise $500 million, and if the price of FET falls sharply, buying crypto with high leverage financing itself is a financially stressful option.

Regulatory risks should also not be ignored, and the biggest consideration for listed companies should be compliance. The SEC had classified SOL as a security, while the compliance of AI tokens was unclear. If regulations are tightened, will coin holders face fines or liquidation?

However, legal affairs expressly prohibit it, and capital has always pursued profits. At this stage of the window, companies are scrambling to imitate the crypto reserve strategy, perhaps with a wishful thinking in mind:

is always a small-capitalisation company, taking advantage of the capital market to gradually embrace the wave of crypto assets to fight for a higher volatility altcoin, not to mention the AI narrative is endless, if it can be achieved, the ROI will naturally be very high.

On the whole, the allocation of altcoins by listed companies is more like a high-risk and high-reward game.

For small-cap companies, this is a capital game of betting on the future, and success or failure will depend on the market's sentiment, the continuity of the narrative, and the ability to actually land.

When a copycat bull market is securitised, both businesses and investors should remember that

risk is the essence of highly volatile assets, and return is the reward of grasping the narrative and timing.