
Avalanche Treasury slides 16% in Nasdaq debut
Avalanche Treasury Company shares fell 16% in their Nasdaq debut on Thursday after the firm completed a $675 million merger with special-purpose acquisition company Mountain Lake Acquisition and began trading under the ticker AVAT.
The company was formed to provide public market investors with exposure to the Avalanche blockchain ecosystem and is backed by institutional investors including Dragonfly, Pantera Capital, ParaFi Capital, VanEck, Galaxy Digital and Kraken.
“It wasn’t a bet on price, but an investment that represents meaningful potential for the repositioning of institutional finance,”
Said Avalanche Treasury chief executive Bart Smith.
AVAT shares closed at $1.85 after opening at $2.20, while Avalanche’s native token AVAX gained 3.4% on the day but remained down 95% from its November 2021 peak and traded near its lowest level since early 2021.
The company launched with a treasury holding of about 15 million AVAX and is seeking to capitalise on growing institutional adoption of Avalanche, which hosts more than 550 projects and more than $1.65 billion in tokenised real-world assets. Following the announcement the Avalanche Treasury share price was down at $1.85.
Avalanche, launched in 2020, uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and multi-chain architecture, with more than $1 billion of institutional capital reportedly deployed across its ecosystem as blockchain-based financial products continue to expand.
The listing arrives during a difficult period for digital asset treasury companies, with Bitcoin treasury inflows falling sharply from April and May highs, while firms such as Strategy, Bitmine Immersion Technologies and Solana-focused SOL Strategies have all recorded steep share price declines over the past year.
At the time of reporting, Avalanche price was $6.62.