Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (ticker DJT) has closed its previously announced purchase agreement with Crypto.com to acquire hundreds of millions of Cronos tokens.
On Friday, the company said it bought 684.4 million CRO at a price of approximately $0.15 per token as part of a 50% stock and 50% cash exchange with Crypto.com. The tokens represent approximately 2% of the current circulating CRO supply. That's in addition to approximately 19% of the CRO circulating supply to be acquired by Trump Media Group CRO Strategy.
The 684.4 million CRO are worth about $178 million at current prices.
"We're convinced that CRO has tremendous potential to spread widely as a versatile utility token and a superior form of safe, fast payment and money transfer, and we're excited to add this innovative asset to our balance sheet," Trump Media's CEO and Chairman Devin Nunes stated in a release.
The agreement is a part of a partnership that enables the CRO token to be integrated into the Truth Social and Truth+ platforms as part of a rewards system using Crypto.com's digital wallet infrastructure. This partnership follows the separate announcement of a newly formed entity, Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, Inc., which has entered into a definitive agreement for a business combination with Yorkville Acquisition Corp (YORK) to form a digital asset treasury company focused on the acquisition of CRO.
"While the companies described the deal as being worth $6.4 billion, most of the capital earmarked for CRO tokens depends on future drawdowns from the credit line," The Block's Yogita Khatri reported last month. "If completed, the deal would make it the largest CRO-focused treasury firm to date.
Trump Media will secure its CRO with Crypto.com's institutional-grade custody offering. The Trump Media shares and CRO tokens exchanged in the deal will both be subject to a lockup period.
"This is the first of many steps to driving utility and value for CRO and the Cronos blockchain," said Crypto.com cofounder and CEO Kris Marszalek. "We are proud to provide support to Trump Media with our best-in-class custody solution and generate additional value through CRO's staking model."
DJT shares traded down 1.5% to $16.51 at publication time. The price of cronos was also down about 1.5% to $0.26, according to The Block's CRO price page. The token has a market cap of $8.8 billion and a total circulating supply of 33.6 billion.
The Trump family's crypto dealings have been in the news all week, following the public debut of World Liberty Financial tokens. Meanwhile, the Trump-backed American Bitcoin company began trading on the Nasdaq, and Trump-backed Thumzup eyes 3,500 Dogecoin mining rigs with a pending acquisition.
