Empery Digital has sold 1,400 bitcoin for roughly $87.1 million and is putting the cash into an artificial intelligence data center, ending a bitcoin treasury strategy the company adopted less than a year ago. The Nasdaq-listed firm disclosed the sales in an 8-K filing on Friday, July 10, saying it sold the coins at an average price of $62,200 since May 7. Proceeds will repay $10 million of debt, cover legal expenses, and fund a $65 million commitment for a 25% stake in a Hunt Properties venture converting a power-rich US industrial site into a 150 MW AI data center campus.
A bitcoin treasury company is a public company whose main business is borrowing or raising money to buy and hold bitcoin on its balance sheet, so its share price tracks the coin.
Key takeaways
- Empery Digital sold 1,400 BTC at an average $62,200 for about $87.1 million between May 7 and July 10, its largest reduction to date.
- The company is committing $65 million for a 25% stake in a 150 MW Midwest AI data center project with Hunt Properties, implying a roughly $260 million project value.
- Empery still holds 1,514 BTC, worth close to $100 million, plus about $74 million in cash, and says it does not intend to buy more.
- Shares (Nasdaq: EMPD) are down about 18% year to date and roughly 82% since the bitcoin treasury pivot launched in July 2025.
Published: July 13, 2026, 05:30 UTC
How a powersports maker became a bitcoin holder, then an AI landlord
Empery Digital was Volcon, an electric powersports vehicle manufacturer, until July 2025, when it raised more than $500 million, rebranded, and started buying bitcoin. At its peak the company held more than 4,000 BTC, enough to rank among the 25 largest publicly traded bitcoin holders.
That accumulation stopped this spring. Empery had already trimmed 370 BTC earlier in 2026 at an average of about $66,632 per coin. The 1,400-coin sale disclosed on Friday was executed at a lower average, $62,200, as bitcoin spent much of May and June trading in the low $60,000s. The company is also shutting down its bitcoin treasury dashboard, the public tracker that treasury firms use to advertise coins per share.
Empery’s replacement strategy is written into the filing: future capital goes to what management calls hyperscaler-anchored data center deals, capped at the $65 million level. Hunt Properties, a Dallas-based real estate and infrastructure developer, supplies the site and construction expertise. Empery supplies cash it raised to buy bitcoin.
Why treasury companies are trading coins for power capacity
The math behind the switch is straightforward. A 25% stake for $65 million values the Midwest campus at roughly $260 million, and the constraint on AI data centers right now is electricity, not chips or land. A 150 MW site with grid access is a scarce asset that can be leased to a hyperscaler on a long contract. A bitcoin balance sheet, by contrast, produces no cash flow and has traded down all year.
Empery is not alone in making the trade. Bitcoin miners with power contracts have been converting capacity to AI compute for two years, and last week TeraWulf signed a $19 billion AI lease with Anthropic. What is new is a company that never mined anything, that exists purely to hold coins, selling the coins to buy the power.
What it means for the corporate bitcoin bid
The direct sell pressure is small. 1,400 BTC is a rounding error against daily spot volume. The signal is not.
Dozens of companies copied Michael Saylor’s playbook in 2025, and the pitch to shareholders was that corporate treasuries were a permanent, price-insensitive source of bitcoin demand. Empery’s filing removes one of those buyers by name, and it does so while the largest player is also selling: Strategy disposed of bitcoin to fund buybacks and remains billions underwater on its average cost. With bitcoin near $64,000, the treasury trade looks less like a floor under the market and more like a leveraged bet that is being unwound where the exit is cheapest.
For Empery shareholders, the pivot is an admission. EMPD is down about 82% since the company staked its identity on bitcoin, and the stock now trades on a data center project that has not been built. Watch for two things next: whether Empery sells any of the remaining 1,514 BTC despite saying the $65 million commitment is capped, and whether the Hunt venture lands an anchor tenant. Without a signed hyperscaler lease, the company has swapped one speculative asset for another.
Frequently asked questions
How much bitcoin does Empery Digital still hold?
As of July 10, 2026, Empery Digital holds 1,514 BTC, worth close to $100 million at current prices, alongside roughly $74 million in cash. The company says it does not intend to buy more bitcoin and may sell additional coins if opportunities arise.
Why is Empery Digital selling bitcoin to build a data center?
Empery is committing $65 million for a 25% stake in a 150 MW AI data center campus with Hunt Properties. Data centers with secured power capacity can be leased to AI companies on long-term contracts, producing cash flow that a bitcoin balance sheet does not.
Does this sale threaten the bitcoin price?
Not directly. 1,400 BTC is a small volume relative to daily spot trading. The concern for the market is the precedent: a company that branded itself around bitcoin accumulation has publicly ended the strategy, weakening the argument that corporate treasuries are durable buyers.
Sources: Empery Digital 8-K filing, The Block, Crypto Briefing, CoinDesk.
