Empery Digital Dumps 1,100 Bitcoin After Shareholder Revolt

Published by James Harris on June 30, 2026June 30, 2026

Empery Digital started 2025 as a Bitcoin treasury company. It will end it trying to become an AI landlord, after shareholder pressure and forced BTC sales dismantled the original strategy faster than management could defend it.

The Austin-based firm, which rebranded from electric vehicle maker Volcon in mid-2025, built a treasury that peaked above 4,000 BTC purchased at an average cost above $117,000 per coin. When Bitcoin dropped below $70,000, the paper losses exceeded 40%, and a shareholder holding roughly 10% of the company called publicly for the CEO’s resignation and a full liquidation. Empery sold hundreds of coins across multiple transactions, including 370 BTC at around $66,632 each to retire a $105 million margin loan, and released approximately 1,800 coins that had been locked as collateral. The company now holds 2,914 BTC, and has quietly discontinued its Bitcoin treasury dashboard, saying crypto holdings alone no longer capture its full net asset value. The pattern here is familiar: a non-native company rushes into Bitcoin treasury strategy near a cycle top, gets caught in a drawdown, and pivots before the thesis has time to play out.

Empery is now paying $65 million for a 25% stake in a newly formed entity acquiring a Midwest industrial property for conversion into an AI data center, alongside Dallas-based Hunt Properties, which controls the remaining 75% through its subsidiary TexStack Infrastructure.

The facility carries roughly 150 megawatts of existing power capacity with a load study suggesting it could scale to 300 MW, and Hunt has signed a non-binding letter of intent for a triple net lease with an unnamed compute provider described as serving a global leader in AI computing hardware. If that lease closes, total payments could reach $1 billion over the contract’s life. But the tenant is unnamed, the lease is non-binding, and the $62.1 million balance is not due until closing, expected in the third quarter of 2026, with a due diligence window expiring July 29. Empery is joining a crowded field: Core Scientific, TeraWulf, Hut 8, and others have all announced AI capacity plans, and VanEck estimates a near-term sector funding gap of roughly $50 billion, with long-term capital needs potentially reaching $221 billion if current plans proceed.

The critical distinction is that those competitors are repurposing existing mining infrastructure and operational expertise. Empery has neither. It has no data center track record, no power management history, and a balance sheet still weighted toward Bitcoin acquired at prices well above where the market sits today. A 25% minority stake in a real estate vehicle managed by a third party is a different exposure than operating infrastructure, and the distance between a letter of intent and $1 billion in lease revenue is considerable.