On February 25, 2026, Beijing time, Nasdaq-listed company GD Culture Group Limited (GDC) announced a thought-provoking capital operation: the board authorized the disposal of up to 7,500 BTC in cryptocurrency asset reserves, while also initiating a stock repurchase plan with a maximum size of $100 million. For a company listed on the Nasdaq, directly linking a large Bitcoin reserve to a buyback of its own shares is unprecedented in public information, sparking immediate discussions in the secondary market and the crypto circle. The sale of Bitcoin, freeing up dollar liquidity, and then buying back its own equity is a meticulously designed “sell coin to save stock” financial technique experiment, or is it a signal of management's shift in the long-term prospects of crypto assets? This has become the most central suspense surrounding GDC.
From Holding Coins to Selling Coins: The Hidden Leverage in GDC's Asset Structure
● Bitcoin reserves as an important part of company assets: Public reports indicate that GDC holds 7,500 BTC on its balance sheet, which, at the market price on the day of the event, corresponds to a nominal value reaching tens of millions of dollars, sufficient to substantially impact the company's overall asset structure and market capitalization expectations. Although it is unclear how this portion of BTC was acquired and its cost basis, GDC’s heavy investment in Bitcoin has classified it in the market as a typical "holding coin publicly listed company."
● Board authorization provides operational flexibility for "gradual sales": According to multiple media reports, the GDC board has authorized the “sale/disposal” of Bitcoin reserves and explicitly granted management the execution power for flexible phased sales. This means the company has not locked in a one-time liquidation; rather, it can dispose of BTC in stages and batches based on market prices, transaction depth, and the company’s own funding needs, controlling the pressure of single-instance selling and price impact, while providing a continuous flexible funding source for the buyback plan.
● Accounting and liquidity challenges brought by including crypto assets on the balance sheet: At the Nasdaq company level, including BTC on the balance sheet is no longer merely a speculative act but involves facing accounting issues such as fair value measurement, impairment testing, and revenue volatility. Bitcoin, while highly liquid, is also subject to severe fluctuations. On one hand, it offers potential flexibility far exceeding that of traditional cash reserves; on the other hand, it may amplify fluctuations in financial reports, posing challenges to earnings quality and valuation stability. GDC’s choice to authorize the disposal essentially recalibrates the weight and role of crypto assets on the balance sheet.
Selling Coins to Buy Back Own Shares: How Is This Accounted?
● Clear binding of buyback framework and funding direction: GDC disclosed a maximum buyback plan of $100 million, which is explicitly linked to the disposal of 7,500 BTC reserves in the public narrative. Although the company has not detailed the precise quid pro quo relationship between “the sale amount and the buyback size,” the logic of “using proceeds from Bitcoin to fund buybacks” has become a market consensus. For a small to medium-sized company with limited scale, such binding effectively treats Bitcoin as a “quasi-cash pool” that can be readily liquidated.
● Management motives for "coin for stock" under underestimated expectations: In the context of traditional corporate governance, large-scale buybacks are often interpreted as management considering the company's stock price to be undervalued, willing to use cash on hand or even leverage to repurchase shares, enhance earnings per share, and increase shareholder returns. Applied to GDC, management’s choice to convert highly volatile Bitcoin into its own equity expresses a hierarchy: within the current price range, their confidence in the long-term fundamentals and valuation repair of the company may outweigh their expectations for BTC’s future appreciation, which is also the key signal currently debated in the market.
● Comparison with traditional cash/debt financing buybacks and risks: In most buyback cases, funding sources are either operating cash flow surpluses, bank credits, or bond financing, while GDC opts for the novel path of “using Bitcoin to fund buybacks.” Its innovation lies in directly coupling the company's market value management tools with high-volatility crypto assets. If Bitcoin prices substantially rise, the company may be accused of "selling high"; if prices fall, it will face asset impairment pressure on financial reports. In any case, this model of using crypto assets as buyback "ammunition" naturally carries higher market sentiment and execution risks.
Price of Bitcoin and Stock Price Pulling Each Other: How the Market Interprets This Hedging
● Potential selling pressure and emotional game of "gradual sales": In absolute terms, if 7,500 BTC were to be concentrated and dumped into the open market, it could easily turn into a bearish narrative of “single institution giant whale selling,” raising investor concerns about short-term prices. Therefore, GDC emphasizes "flexible phased sales," which is fundamentally aimed at mitigating the instantaneous impact on the spot market through time dispersion and scaling disaggregation. Some market voices believe this strategy retains the company's room to reduce holdings based on market conditions while serving as a “responsible” operation towards the overall liquidity of the crypto market.
● Complex signal of selling BTC but buying back stock: For secondary market investors, the more sensitive issue might not be the sale itself but how to interpret the combined actions of “selling coins, buying stocks.” One interpretation suggests that this signifies management's relative conservatism regarding BTC's future performance, choosing to lock in existing gains; another interpretation posits the company is utilizing the book profits from previous Bitcoin appreciation to re-invest in its more familiar and controllable physical business and stock price recovery opportunities. The coexistence of these two logics means every step of GDC's execution may be closely scrutinized by the market.
● Will it become a new model for holding coin public companies? GDC's attempt has quickly spilled over into broader discussions—will those publicly listed companies that also incorporate Bitcoin into their balance sheets mimic this model of using crypto assets as a funding pool and equity as a leverage for market value management in the future? Once this path is proven effective in the capital market, more enterprises may treat BTC as a flexible reserve that can be readily deployed, using the “sell coin to buy back” approach to bolster market confidence, which will profoundly change the toolbox for traditional asset allocation and market value management.
On-Chain Activity and U.S. Stock Connection: The Interweaving of Noise and Context
● Uncertainty of on-chain withdrawals concerning GDC: On the day of the event, on-chain monitoring data showed that two new addresses withdrew a total of 687.72 BTC from Binance, which roughly amounted to $45.72 million at that time. This size is also significant and has quickly been associated by some observers with GDC's disposal authorization. However, there is currently no evidence in public information indicating a direct link between these addresses and GDC. Binding the two carries a clear risk of misguidance, and a more reasonable attitude is to view it as independent on-chain capital movement noise occurring within the same time window.
● Capital environment under rising macro risk appetite: From a broader perspective, on the same trading day, the three major U.S. stock index futures collectively rose, with overall increases ranging from 0.3% to 0.43%, indicating a repair in overall sentiment for risk assets. Simultaneously, Circle (CRCL) surged 21.6% in premarket, with a market cap of approximately $17.4 billion, reflecting a rising interconnectedness between traditional and crypto financial assets. In such a generally warming environment of risk appetite, GDC's announcement to authorize the disposal of crypto assets and buy back stock was placed in a context that is not merely “risk aversion retreat” but rather a structural reallocation within the high-risk asset sector.
● Possible considerations in choosing to authorize during a warming sentiment period: Announcing the sale of coins and buyback plan while market risk appetite is rising may reflect several practical considerations by GDC: first, the price of Bitcoin is more likely to achieve better liquidity and trading prices during a sentiment recovery period, creating conditions for phased liquidation; second, launching the buyback plan while the overall U.S. stock market is strengthening and some crypto-related targets are rising helps reinforce the company's posture of “actively managing market value”; third, in a macro environment leaning towards optimism, even limited BTC selling pressure is more likely to be absorbed by the market, thereby reducing sentiment risk.
Selling Bitcoin to Buy Back Itself: What to Watch Next
Through authorizing the disposal of 7,500 BTC to support a maximum $100 million stock buyback plan, GDC is essentially stepping into a meaningful experimental exploration regarding asset management and the application of capital market tools. On one hand, it upgrades crypto assets from passive holding for price appreciation to an active “funding pool” serving shareholder returns; on the other hand, this also provides a practical sample for observing how crypto assets can be embedded in corporate finance and market value management within a compliant framework at the Nasdaq level.
However, for investors, the current key information gap should not be overlooked: GDC has not disclosed the specific cost of BTC, nor provided clear information on the quantity, transaction intervals, and pacing of actual sales, and the specific timetable and intensity of the buyback plan remain unknown. In the absence of these core data, interpreting it simply as “bearish on BTC” or “very bullish on the company stock” carries evident risks of over-interpretation. A more prudent approach is to focus on subsequent regulatory disclosures and financial report updates.
Looking ahead over a longer cycle, if GDC's model proves effective, more listed companies may choose to treat Bitcoin and other crypto assets as highly elastic asset reserves while viewing traditional equity buybacks as the main lever for valuation management: hoarding coins to enhance book assets during favorable market conditions, and selling coins to recover and boost valuations during stock price downturns, dynamically reallocating between the two asset types. This path of “using crypto assets as elastic reserves, and equity as valuation leverage” could, once adopted at scale, both amplify the cyclical fluctuations of the global crypto market and deepen Bitcoin’s embedment within the fabric of traditional capital markets.
Join our community to discuss and grow stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh
OKX welfare group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance welfare group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
