Summary Eightco surged over 30x after announcing a $250M private placement and pivoting to a Worldcoin crypto treasury strategy. This marks the first public company Worldcoin treasury, mirroring prior crypto treasury plays like Bitmine, with similar speculative dynamics and equity dilution risks. Valuation is now almost entirely driven by the anticipated crypto holdings, with significant volatility expected as treasury accumulation progresses. Given the novelty, high uncertainty, and speculative nature, I am initiating coverage with a neutral Hold rating and advise caution for investors. Eightco ( OCTO ) just had a big day, the kind that put the stock up more than 30X in value. It's another ticker that wasn't known for headlines or a big market cap but has been utilized for a crypto treasury strategy. OCTO 5D Price History (Seeking Alpha) With immediate events ongoing and a very volatile price situation ahead, I wanted to get a basic idea out for how to approach this security and am keeping it neutral for now. Change In Plans With a $4.4M market cap just earlier this week, Eightco had operations in Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) mining, custom corrugated packaging, and funding for e-commerce businesses, with only $154K in earnings for 2024. The announcement came on the morning of September 8. Eightco announced that they would be doing a $250M private placement of their shares on the 11th, with $20M already purchased by Bitmine ( BMNR ), a company I also covered a few weeks ago that recently shifted to a treasury strategy for Ether ( ETH-USD ). Eightco isn't another ETH play, however. They clarified that they would be doing a Worldcoin ( WDC-USD ) treasury strategy. This is the native currency of the World Network, founded in 2019 by none other than Sam Altman. Lastly, they added that the ticker will be changed to ORBS, so it's important for investors who follow along to keep that in mind. Likely Strategy Going Forward While it's the first case of a Worldcoin treasury, it will likely follow the example of Bitmine, as well as other "crypto treasuries" that I've observed. BMNR July 2025 Investor Presentation Borrowing one of their slides from their own shift into the ETH treasury, Bitmine believes that network-based cryptos differ crucially from BTC, which many consider "digital gold." Bitmine believes native currencies of key blockchain networks, like ETH, are more like "digital oil," commodities with actual utility in an economy. It stands to reason that this is a vote of confidence in Worldcoin and the World Network on the part of Bitmine, particularly its "Proof of Human" concept: An anonymous proof of human that securely and privately proves you are a unique human. It supports multiple types of human-exclusive verifications via proof of human credentials, allowing users to prove they are human and unique. These treasury strategies entail issuing copious amounts of equity, privately or in ATM offerings, in order to accumulate the intended crypto. Even convertible securities, which come with interest or dividend expenses to the common, are sometimes issued. Both effectively use the equity of the business as a form of leverage to build a treasury position. Cryptos like Worldcoin can be staked to produce yield, effectively creating interest income as well. As these strategies are new, many forming in the wake of the GENIUS Act, other ways to create value haven't yet been developed, and the general investment thesis for their stocks is that the crypto portfolio should appreciate, benefiting shareholders indirectly. Valuation Given these things, there's a lot of speculation baked into this. Eightco isn't a business with much cash flow at all, and almost everything in the valuation after the announcement reflects the treasury strategy. Worldcoin Price on September 8, 2025 (Coinbase) The price chart above shows how Worldcoin climbed in price throughout the day and continued to do so after market hours closed. This is before the bulk of the offering is even raised and therefore does not reflect the buying activity of Eightco yet. Trading Data (Coinbase) If we look at the trading data from Coinbase on this, Worldcoin's market cap rose to $3.6B as a result, with nearly that value in volume from the past 24 hours, which accounted for 18% of the volume in the last 30 days. That's a lot for the first day of the treasury strategy. As $250M remains yet to be raised and committed to this goal, that's about 8% of the market cap unspent that can create buying pressure. There's reason to think that upside exists, and one might make a Buy thesis on this basis alone. Similarly, OCTO's market cap closed Sept. 8 under $140M, short of the $250M in assets it should soon have. BMNR 6M Price History (Seeking Alpha) If we look to BMNR again as an example, there was a quick pop in July when they also announced their change to ETH treasury, from about $4.50 to a high of $135 in the first few days. It cratered shortly thereafter, and recent increases reflect action after further capital raises. SUIG 6M Price History (Seeking Alpha) SUI Group ( SUIG ) also saw a sudden pop and has zig-zagged as more fundraising and treasury accumulation occurred. There's a pattern to some of this. I think folks interested in OCTO need to take this into account. For the foreseeable future, I think there will likely be ebbs and flows, with sharp jumps that follow new stock offerings, followed by an easing as buying action for the underlying crypto slows down. Conclusion Peter Thiel wrote about the difference in returns between 0 to 1 and 1 to X, the former being the more vertical of the two, even if X is a great return like 1 to 5. For OCTO, the 0 to 1 moment has already passed, and we are in a highly uncertain 1 to X phase. I'll remind folks that X can be a smaller number than 1, too. Crypto treasury companies are a novelty of 2025, and much remains to be seen about how well they will fare and if their existence will ultimately provide value to shareholders or the related blockchain networks. While buying activity may drive the stock up more, it's good to be cautious. I initiate coverage with a neutral Hold rating.
