Empery Digital sells 1,400 Bitcoin, raising $87 million to fund AI pivot

Empery Digital (NASDAQ: EMPD) sold 1,400 Bitcoins from the stash it built throughout 2025 at an average of $62,200 a coin, raising about $87.1 million to invest in AI data centers and pay down debt.

The Nasdaq-listed company started the sale in May and is now left holding 1,514 BTC.

Why did Empery Digital sell its Bitcoin?

Barely one year ago, Empery Digital rebranded from Volcon Inc. and changed its whole business plan from electric vehicles to focusing on holding Bitcoin. Now, it is walking away from that strategy to chase the booming demand for AI computing power. Why?

The simple answer is that its Bitcoin investment lost a lot of value. Cryptopolitan previously reported that Empery bought most of its Bitcoin when prices were around $117,000 per coin. However, when prices fell below $70,000 earlier this year, those holdings dropped more than 40% in value.

The company revealed in an 8-K filing that it sold 1,400 coins at an average price of $62,200 each starting from May 7, and raised about $87.1 million.

$10 million of the total raised was used to pay off debt on July 7, $65 million was used for a stake in a data center project, while the rest was used to pay for legal costs from shareholder lawsuits and day-to-day expenses.

After the sale, Empery still holds 1,514 BTC worth about $97.1 million at current prices. The company also has roughly $73.9 million in cash and still owes $45 million on its debt.

An activist investor named Tice P. Brown pushed hard for this change. Brown, who runs a family office called Woodmont Partners, built a roughly 10% stake in Empery. He demanded that the CEO and board resign and that the company sell all its Bitcoin and give the money back to shareholders.

In a February filing, he said keeping Bitcoin made no business sense because there are cheaper ways to get exposure to cryptocurrency.

At first, Empery defended its strategy of using options trading to earn income from its Bitcoin holdings, but later the company started selling anyway. Before this big sale, it had already sold 370 BTC at about $66,632 per coin to pay off a loan and free up coins that were tied up as collateral.

What is Empery Digital’s AI strategy?

Empery is putting $65 million into a 25% stake in a new company that will turn an old industrial property in the Midwest into an AI data center. A Dallas-based firm called Hunt Properties owns the other 75% of the data center through its TexStack Infrastructure unit.

The site already has about 150 megawatts of power, and a study says it could handle up to 300 megawatts. The total cost of the property is about $230 million.

Empery has paid $2.9 million so far and must pay the remaining $62.1 million when the deal closes. The company has until July 29 to finish its checks on the property.

Alongside the announcement, Empery said it would shut down its Bitcoin treasury dashboard, telling investors that a net asset value based on crypto alone does not account for the total NAV of the company anymore.

Aside from Empery Digital, Bitcoin miners, including MARA Holdings, Core Scientific, TeraWulf, Hut 8, and Cipher Mining, are all repurposing their power assets for AI workloads due to mining becoming less profitable. MARA this month secured access to up to 2,000 MW on the Texas grid for a mix of mining and AI compute.

The difference between Empery and these companies is that it has no existing data center operations and no track record running power infrastructure. Asset manager VanEck has said the AI infrastructure buildout needs about $50 billion in funding soon, and that could grow to $221 billion over time.

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