Written by: TechFlow
Questioning MicroStrategy, understanding MicroStrategy, becoming MicroStrategy.
Since MicroStrategy first incorporated Bitcoin (BTC) into its asset reserves in 2020, an increasing number of US-listed companies and global enterprises have followed suit, with holding crypto assets becoming an obvious trend of stock market crypto integration.
As of 2025, the number of companies holding crypto assets has surged from single digits to dozens.
However, this trend of corporate crypto holdings has diverged into multiple streams:
Bitcoin, with its strongest consensus, remains a prudent choice; Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) have also attracted followers due to their widespread recognition;
Now, this corporate buying trend has even blown towards the realm of smaller Altcoins, such as Fetch.ai's $FET in the AI sector and Bittensor's $TAO.
Looking back, ETH once dropped about 26.7% in a single day in June 2022, SOL fell by 43% in November 2022 due to FTX's bankruptcy, and the fragility of AI tokens is even more apparent - for example, the emergence of DeepSeek's open-source AI model triggered a collective pullback of on-chain AI Agent tokens. Tokens with slightly larger market caps like FET and TAO have volatility of about 15% and 18% in the past 30 days, respectively.
Is it feasible for listed companies to allocate these more volatile Altcoins?
Who is Positioning in AI Tokens?
To answer this question, let's examine which companies have already positioned in these AI tokens, along with their strategies and risks.
Interactive Strength (TRNR): Buying FET, Fitness + AI Leap Forward
This placement involves selling approximately 1.98 million ordinary shares or equivalent securities, priced at $3.77 per share, lower than the current market price. This means the company is offering shares at a certain discount to attract investors.
At the current market price, this amount of funds could purchase around 1,890 $TAO tokens, which is not a large quantity.
However, you can view this TAO purchase as a strategic transformation from traditional IT business to AI and digital asset domains.
Video conferencing solutions are a highly competitive field. While the company's Mezzanine platform has some market presence in video collaboration, its revenue growth has slowed by about 5% since 2023, mainly due to competing software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
The company's CEO Peter Holst states that the intersection of AI and blockchain is key to future innovation, and $TAO is seen as a potential asset for crypto AI infrastructure, similar to Bitcoin's early institutional adoption phase.
The company plans to achieve asset appreciation by holding and staking $TAO, while also exploring the development of Bittensor-based software tools, such as AI-driven meeting assistance features.
However, Subnet 0 in the TAO network primarily focuses on text prompt tasks (like natural language processing), and Oblong's choice to stake in this subnet seems somewhat far-fetched in relation to video conferencing business, and is more likely motivated by staking returns and signaling.
This strategy is more of a strategic trial to test the long-term potential of AI tokens.
Risks and Rewards Coexist
The corporate trend of holding cryptocurrencies has expanded from single assets to diversified choices.
Besides BTC, Altcoins show significantly higher volatility. For example, TRNR, with a market cap of $8.4 million, plans to raise $500 million. If FET's price drops significantly, high-leverage financing to buy tokens is itself a massive financial pressure.
Regulatory risks cannot be ignored. For listed companies, compliance should be the primary consideration. The SEC previously classified SOL as a security, and the compliance of AI tokens remains unclear. Would holding companies face fines or liquidation if regulations tighten?
However, as long as there's no explicit legal prohibition, capital will always seek profit. In the current window period, companies are racing to imitate crypto reserve strategies, perhaps with their own calculations:
Ultimately, these are small-cap companies riding the wave of capital markets gradually embracing crypto assets, gambling on more volatile Altcoins. Moreover, with the AI narrative enduring, if successful, the ROI would naturally be high.
Overall, listed companies allocating Altcoins seem more like a high-risk, high-reward gamble.
For small-cap companies, this is a capital game betting on the future, with success depending on market sentiment, narrative continuity, and actual implementation capabilities.
When Altcoin bull markets become stock-like, both enterprises and investors should remember:
Risk is the essence of high-volatility assets, while returns are the reward of seizing narratives and timing.
