# Empery Digital Dumps Nearly Half Its Bitcoin to Chase an AI Data Center Bet > Source: > Published: 2026-07-12 09:05:52+00:00 *Empery Digital just sold nearly half its Bitcoin at a steep loss to buy a quarter of an AI data center that isn't even built yet.* The company formerly known as Volcon, the electric off-road vehicle maker that pivoted to a Bitcoin treasury strategy less than a year ago, is pivoting again. This time the move is harsher. Between May 7 and July 10, Empery Digital sold 1,400 BTC for roughly $87.1 million, an average price of about $62,200 a coin, according to an SEC 8-K filing. That's a rough exit. The company had built its stockpile at an average cost above $117,000 per coin, according to Cointelegraph, which means most of those coins went out the door at close to a 47 percent loss. ## A $65 Million Bet on an AI Data Center That Isn't Built The proceeds are funding a $65 million commitment: a 25 percent stake in a new entity developing an AI data center on industrial land in the Midwest. Hunt Properties holds the rest. The Dallas real estate firm has more than $2.5 billion in completed projects since 1987, and it controls the other 75 percent through its subsidiary TexStack Infrastructure. The site already carries about 150 megawatts of power capacity. A recent load study found room to expand to 300 megawatts, according to Data Center Dynamics. That's real capacity, not a slide deck. The full property acquisition is valued at roughly $230 million. The due diligence window runs out July 29, and Empery expects the deal to close in the third quarter. None of the tenants are locked in yet. Hunt Properties has a non-binding letter of intent for a triple net lease with a compute provider that serves, in the company's own words, "a global leader in AI computing hardware." If that lease materializes, total payments could reach $1 billion over its life, per Empery's disclosure. That's the pitch. A fixed, long-duration income stream replaces a volatile crypto balance sheet. For now, it is still a promise on paper. You don't sell 1,400 Bitcoin at a loss without pressure from somewhere. Tice P. Brown, a shareholder who holds roughly 9.8 percent of Empery's stock, sent the board a letter demanding it liquidate the entire Bitcoin position, return the cash to investors, and replace the CEO and the rest of the board, according to Cointelegraph. The debt mattered too. Empery had leaned on a $105 million margin loan to help fund its original Bitcoin buying, and part of the BTC sold this year, including 370 coins at about $66,632 each, went straight to paying that loan down, TheStreet reported. The original strategy stopped working once Bitcoin fell well below the company's cost basis. ## A Familiar Playbook, With Less Certainty Empery isn't inventing this playbook. Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Digital and TeraWulf have already leaned into AI infrastructure leasing as a hedge against crypto mining's thin margins, and Wall Street has rewarded that shift with far more enthusiasm than it ever showed for treasury Bitcoin. But this is not the same setup. Galaxy and TeraWulf were converting mining capacity they already operated. Empery is buying a minority stake in a site someone else controls, backed by a lease that hasn't been signed, at a company that has changed its core business twice in under two years. Empery also quietly retired its Bitcoin treasury dashboard, the tool it used to report net asset value tied to its coin holdings. The company said, effective immediately, that reporting NAV based on Bitcoin no longer reflects what the business actually is. That's an honest admission. It's also a tell. A company built its investor pitch around Bitcoin accumulation for a year, then dropped the scoreboard the same month it announced the AI deal. Frankly, the numbers here don't inspire confidence on their own. A quarter stake. A non-binding lease. A due diligence period that hasn't closed. Bitcoin sold near a 47 percent loss under shareholder duress. If the compute lease signs and the site scales to 300 megawatts, Empery may look prescient for getting into AI infrastructure before the crowd got there. If it doesn't, shareholders will have watched a Bitcoin treasury turn into an unbuilt data center bet with someone else holding the controlling stake. Q3 will tell you which one it is. **Also read:** [Coinbase Says the CLARITY Act Is on the One Yard Line and Stuck There](https://startupfortune.com/coinbase-says-the-clarity-act-is-on-the-one-yard-line-and-stuck-there/) • [How to Farm Crypto Airdrops Without Getting Sybil-Filtered](https://startupfortune.com/how-to-farm-crypto-airdrops-without-getting-sybil-filtered/) • [Circle Wins Final OCC Approval to Become a National Trust Bank](https://startupfortune.com/circle-wins-final-occ-approval-to-become-a-national-trust-bank/)