Another publicly traded company is entering the digital asset treasury market, aiming for exposure to The Open Network’s native coin, even as the token’s value continues to decline.
On Thursday, AlphaTON, previously known as Portage Biotech, announced it had acquired $30 million worth of Toncoin (TON) tokens as part of its cryptocurrency accumulation strategy. The token has dropped approximately 13% over the past month.
With this purchase, AlphaTON became the second digital asset treasury (DAT) focused on Toncoin, joining TON Strategy Co., which rebranded from Verb Technology Company in August.
In a press release, the company mentioned plans to grow its treasury to $100 million in TON by the end of 2025. AlphaTON shares had fallen about 9.6% over 24 hours at the time of writing, according to Yahoo Finance.
Driving the company’s decision is Brittany Kaiser, a former board member of Bitcoin mining firm Gryphon Digital. According to a September filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has been focused on “researching and developing immune oncology treatments” since 2019.
The TON crypto treasury will become one of its “primary lines of business.”
The number of public companies shifting to become DATs has increased in 2025. Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, initiated this trend in 2020 with the company’s first Bitcoin (BTC) acquisition.
TON Strategy, the inaugural TON treasury firm, began accumulating in August with a $713 million purchase, and currently holds around 217.5 million tokens. Its stock performance has also faced difficulties, dropping over 65% in the last month.
Both companies follow a similar strategy of accumulating and staking TON, although AlphaTON places greater emphasis on ecosystem investment, while TON Strategy highlights a no-leverage, long-term holding approach.
Cointelegraph reached out to TON Strategy Company for commentary, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Related: Telegram’s TON exclusivity ‘not a limitation but a necessity’
TON struggles to regain momentum despite backing
The Open Network is a decentralized blockchain created by Telegram in 2018, now independently operated by the TON Foundation, which supports ecosystem growth but does not control the network’s open-source technology.
On Jan. 21, Telegram declared it would cease support for all other blockchains, making The Open Network the sole infrastructure for its Mini App ecosystem in collaboration with the TON Foundation.
However, despite increasing network activity and over $400 million in investments from various venture capital firms in March, the price of TON has struggled to recover.
The altcoin was trading at $2.75 at the time of writing, down approximately 50% year-to-date, and has retraced over 25% in the last six months, according to TradingView data.
In 2025, DATs have broadened beyond Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), with altcoins such as Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), and several other cryptocurrencies becoming the reserve assets for publicly traded companies.
However, in recent weeks, Standard Chartered cautioned that the market net asset values (mNAVs) of numerous digital asset treasuries have dropped, putting smaller companies at increased risk.
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