GD Culture Group (GDC) has received board approval to sell part of its 7,500 bitcoin reserve to help fund a previously announced stock repurchase program, the company said.

The board authorization allows management to decide when and how to carry out the bitcoin sales. GD Culture emphasized it’s not obligated to sell any set amount and can alter or halt the plan at any time.

Facing a sharp decline in the stock price as the price of bitcoin has tumbled in recent months, the board approved a $100 million repurchase program earlier this month.

The company’s bitcoin holdings are currently worth about $497 million, according to data from CoinGecko. That value has dropped over time, with GD Culture carrying an unrealized loss of $344 million, down nearly 41% from its total acquisition cost of $841.5 million.

The company got its large bitcoin stash through the acquisition of Pallas Capital Holding. The move was, at the time, financed through the issuance of 39.18 million shares.

Other companies have also started divesting their bitcoin holdings. Earlier this week, Bitdeer sold all of its BTC to fund a move into AI data centers, while Riot Platforms reduced its BTC balance late last year.

GDC shares are higher by 7% on Wednesday alongside a modest bounce in the price of bitcoin to above $67,000. They remain down by nearly 70% from their September 2025 peak.

Bitcoin BTC$65,121.75 snapped back near $69,000 on Wednesday, rallying more than 10% from Tuesday’s low as crypto markets staged a broad relief rally after a prolonged stretch of pessimism.

Ethereum’s ether (ETH), DOGE$0.1049, native tokens of Solana (SOL) and ADA$0.3088 all posted double-digit gains, extending a move that caught many traders leaning the wrong way.

Digital asset stocks, battered lower in the past months amid falling crypto prices, also enjoyed a relief rally. Stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) surged 34% after its earnings report, while crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) jumped 14%. Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, climbed 9%, and the ether treasury firm BitMine advanced 12%.

The broad-based rally offered a welcome reprieve after weeks of persistent selling pressure and dread of a next leg lower.

Still, analysts cautioned that despite the sharp bounce across tokens and equities, crypto markets are not out of the woods yet, with key resistance levels and macro risks still looming.

While there was no immediate catalyst behind the Wednesday move, extreme fear and bearish positioning across crypto markets were prime conditions for a violent countertrend advance, according to Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group.

“Crypto assets have been heavily pressured in recent months and overdue for a technical bounce,” he wrote. “The market had built up a meaningful tactical short bias, leaving it vulnerable to sharp squeezes on limited headlines.”

Still, Kruger cautioned against calling the rebound the start of a durable uptrend yet.

“Given the abrupt nature of the rally and the absence of a clear trigger — particularly against the backdrop of thinner liquidity conditions — the advance should be treated with caution,” he said.

Chasing the rally

Joshua Lim, global co-head of markets at FalconX, said his desk is seeing heavy demand for bullish bets on ether in the options market. Specifically, traders are buying call options and call spreads in the $2,000–$2,200 range over the next two to three weeks, seeking to profit from further near-term upside.

Lim added that some funds are also “chasing this rally” by rotating into higher-volatility altcoins and using options to amplify potential gains — a sign that risk appetite has picked up quickly after the recent rebound.

Adding some complexity, roughly 115,000 BTC options worth $7.49 billion will expire Friday at month-end. The so-called “max pain” — the price level where the largest number of options expire worthless — currently is at around $75,000, Wintermute OTC trader Jasper De Maere noted. The “max pain” point can sometimes act as a magnetic level into expiry, though dealer positioning appears weak, he said.

“Fundamental indicators still remain unconvincing that this strength will see much follow through,” De Maere added.

Levels to watch

Technically, bitcoin faces stiff resistance in the $70,000 and $72,000 zone, where recent rallies have stalled as sellers stepped in. Overcoming those levels would be the first challenge in turning the bounce into a durable move higher.

Bitfinex analysts also pointed to $78,000, where the “True Market Mean,” an onchain valuation metric to estimate bitcoin’s fair value based on actual capital flows into the network, currently sits.

That level must be reclaimed on a sustained weekly basis before the structural picture improves, Bitfinex analysts said.

The board of directors for GD Culture Group (GDC), a publicly listed holding company focused on digital marketing and AI, on Wednesday authorized the company to sell Bitcoin (BTC) from its corporate treasury to pay for a share buyback program.

The move appears to be a reversal of a May 2025 decision to build a cryptocurrency reserve of Bitcoin and Official Trump Coin (TRUMP).

Wednesday’s authorization allows the company to sell the BTC from its treasury in “one or more transactions,” and the company is not under an obligation to sell any amount of BTC, according to GDC’s announcement

In February, the company announced a stock buyback program of up to $100 million of its shares for a period of six months.

Shares of GDC traded up more than 24% by Wednesday’s close at $4.13 apiece, according to Yahoo Finance. 

The announcement came amid a broad crypto market downturn, which dragged the price of BTC down as low as $60,000, more than 50% from its all-time high above $126,000; the market rout has negatively impacted Bitcoin treasury companies. 

Related: FG Nexus sells another $14M in Ether as losses mount on treasury bet

GDC climbs the treasury ranks in a matter of months, but entered near the market top

GDC purchased 7,500 BTC through an $875 million acquisition of Pallas Capital Holding in September 2025, when BTC was trading between $109,000 and $117,000. Shares of the company plunged about 28% in response to the deal.

GDC is the 15th largest BTC treasury company by Bitcoin holdings, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries, but is down about 41% on its BTC investment.

The company has a multiple on net asset value (mNAV) of 0.42; mNAV is a critical metric for Bitcoin treasury companies, calculated by dividing the market capitalization of the company by the dollar value of its BTC holdings. 

Despite the market drawdown, the company’s 7,500 BTC treasury is valued at about $517.5 million using the market price at the time of publication; this is more than double GDC’s market cap of about $236.7 million, following today’s stock surge.

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