Verb Technology, soon to be Ton Strategy Company, acquires $713 million worth of TON

Verb Technology Company, Inc., a Nasdaq-listed social commerce technology firm in the process of rebranding to Ton Strategy Company after adopting a digital asset treasury (DAT) strategy targeting The Open Network's native token Toncoin (TON), said on Thursday it has acquired $713 million worth of the cryptocurrency. 

The firm, which raised $558 million in a private placement at the beginning of August, said its total treasury assets are worth $780 million, with $713 million worth of TON and $67 million in cash. 

"By becoming the first and largest publicly traded treasury reserve of $TON, VERB is not just holding $TON on its balance sheet – we are helping to strengthen the economic foundation of the network itself,” said Executive Chairman Manuel Stotz in a statement. Stotz is also the CEO of Kingsway Capital and served as president of the TON Foundation until Wednesday, when he stepped down to focus on Verb.

The company aimed to acquire more than 5% of the circulating supply of TON. With $713 million worth of Toncoin, the firm currently holds about 8.5% of the token's current circulating supply. TON was launched with an initial token supply of 5 billion tokens and includes a modest inflation rate to reward validators. There are approximately 2.6 billion TON tokens in circulation, according to The Block's Toncoin Price page.

Toncoin has traded flat over the past twenty-four hours, according to The Block's data.

Verb Technology is currently the only publicly-traded company that has adopted a Toncoin treasury strategy. Toncoin is the native token of The Open Network, which powers the web3 infrastructure of encrypted messenger app Telegram. With Stotz involved in both the TON Foundation and Verb, the firm highlights another example of a DAT company closely entwined with the token project itself.