Publicly traded media company Newsmax is creating a digital assets treasury centered on Bitcoin and President Donald Trump's meme coin, which trades as TRUMP on Solana.
The company's board of directors approved the plan, which will see it acquire up to $5 million of the two assets in total over the next year, according to a company announcement on Thursday.
“Bitcoin is fast becoming the gold standard of cryptocurrency, and we believe it would be an important company marker to add this asset to our company reserves," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said in a statement.
"We are also excited to add Trump Coin to our cryptocurrency plan,” he added, “as we believe the coin's value should track the success of the Trump presidency, which so far has been impressive.”
Details about how the firm will fund the initiative were not revealed, but it expects to make the first strategic purchase “in the near future.”
Shares of Newsmax, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker NMAX, dropped around 4% today to $10.83 as broader markets slid amid increased macro volatility. However, shares are up more than 4% in after-hours trading, according to data from Yahoo Finance.
Both Bitcoin and TRUMP dipped further on Thursday, with BTC falling 3% to $107,709 as the president’s official meme coin dropped 2.1%. The latter coin fell outside of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, according to data from CoinGecko.
TRUMP is now changing hands at $5.90, nearly 92% off its January all-time high of $73.43.
Newsmax joins the Trump-backed Trump Media as media companies with digital asset reserves plans. Earlier this year, Trump Media bought $2 billion worth of Bitcoin and related securities, placing it inside the top 10 largest publicly traded Bitcoin holders.
If Newsmax used all $5 million of its approved funds to purchase BTC, it would only be able to obtain around 46 BTC, ranking it outside the top 100, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.
A representative for Newsmax did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
