Video-sharing platform Rumble added $17.1 million in Bitcoin to its corporate treasury, aligning itself with a crop of publicly traded companies that have added the world’s oldest cryptocurrency to their balance sheets. The Nasdaq-listed firm purchased roughly 188 Bitcoin for its treasury at an average price of $91,000 per token, the company said Wednesday in a statement. The Bitcoin is now worth about $15.5 million based on Wednesday’s price.
The move forms part of Rumble’s plan to allocate up to $20 million of its excess cash reserves to Bitcoin. “These holdings have the potential to serve as a valuable hedge against inflation and will not be subject to dilution like so many overprinted government-issued currencies,” Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovsk said in the statement.
Rumble’s investment in Bitcoin comes as a growing number of publicly traded companies adopt a similar strategy to Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which pivoted its focus from software several years ago to become a Bitcoin treasury that now holds more than 444,000 Bitcoin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. Tesla, and Semler Scientific are among those firms that have accumulated large stockpiles of bitcoin in recent years. Rumble announced its plan to pour funds into Bitcoin late last year, around the time the asset sailed to an all-time high of nearly $109,000.
Although Bitcoin’s price has more than 20% since then, according to CoinGecko data, the token rebounded above $83,000 on Tuesday, amid pro-crypto regulatory developments in the U.S. With Bitcoin’s price down from earlier levels, some companies are buying the dip. Metaplanet, for example, revealed Wednesday that it recently allocated an additional $13.2 million of its funds to Bitcoin. And Strategy earlier this week introduced a plan to sell $21 billion in stock to purchase more Bitcoin.
In its statement, Rumble called Bitcoin a “valuable tool for strategic planning” as it aims to expand into the cryptocurrency world. “We are proud to officially hold Bitcoin as we continue to grow and engrain crypto into our company’s DNA,” Pavlovsk said. Rumble’s shares are trading at $7.94 as of writing time, up roughly 2% in the past 24 hours.
