A Nasdaq-listed company worth about $8 million says it may sell bitcoin worth roughly $450 million after the Binance hack prompted its board to reconsider the risks of holding the cryptocurrency.
Next Technology Holding (NXTT), a software company based in Japan, said after Friday’s close that its directors had authorized selling or borrowing against its approximately 5,833 $BTC in one or more batches.
The company pointed out the Binance hacking incident, exchange vulnerabilities and the potential threat quantum computing poses to bitcoin’s cryptography as reasons behind its decision. It said none of its bitcoin is held on or through Binance.
Chief Executive Weihong Liu will decide the timing, price and size of any transactions. The authorization allows exchange sales, privately negotiated trades and bitcoin-backed financing, with no assurance that any will be completed.
The balance-sheet numbers are striking. NXTT closed Friday at $5.30, putting the value of its roughly 1.47 million outstanding shares at about $7.8 million, per CoinDesk’s calculations. At roughly $77,000 per bitcoin, its reported cryptocurrency holdings would be worth about $449 million — or more than 50 times that equity valuation.
