Beckham-Backed Firm Drops Bitcoin Holdings Plan, Once Raised $48M to Dive Into Crypto Assets

BlockBeats News, December 31st, Nutritional supplement company Prenetics Global, backed by soccer star Beckham, announced the cancellation of its Bitcoin (BTC) reserves and hodling plan. The decision comes less than three months after the company completed a $48 million funding round and explicitly outlined a strategy to build a cryptocurrency asset treasury.

Prenetics stated that the company will refocus its strategic emphasis on its core consumer health business, IM8, calling it the "fastest-growing nutritional supplement brand in industry history." In a statement released on Tuesday, the company said it would no longer make future Bitcoin purchases.

In October of this year, this Nasdaq-listed company completed an oversubscribed equity financing round, with the funds originally intended to be used for accelerating the Bitcoin treasury construction and expanding the IM8 brand. At that time, the price of Bitcoin was around $114,000, while as of Tuesday afternoon, the price of Bitcoin had fallen to around $88,000. The investors in this round of financing included Beckham, Kraken, Exodus, GPTX under Wu Jihan, DL Holdings, and American Ventures, among other institutions.

The company disclosed that it currently holds over $70 million in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet and owns 510 Bitcoins.