Prenetics Halts Bitcoin Purchases to Focus on Rapidly Growing IM8 Business

Prenetics (NASDAQ: PRE), a health-sciences company that raised $48 million earlier this year, has announced it will stop purchasing bitcoin amid continued weakness in the cryptocurrency market. The decision marks a strategic shift as the company redirects its capital and attention toward its fast-growing IM8 business, which has exceeded internal growth expectations.

The company originally launched its bitcoin accumulation strategy in June, inspired by the corporate treasury model popularized by Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. Under this approach, companies raise capital to acquire and hold bitcoin on their balance sheets. The trend gained momentum earlier in the year when crypto prices were rising, but interest cooled following a sharp market downturn in October.

On October 27, Prenetics CEO and co-founder Danny Yeung announced the funding round, which included notable investors such as Kraken, Exodus (EXOD), GPTX, and American Ventures. At the time, Yeung stated that the capital would be used to expand IM8 globally while accumulating one bitcoin per day, with an ambitious long-term goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue and bitcoin holdings within five years.

However, in a statement released Tuesday, Prenetics confirmed it stopped purchasing bitcoin on December 4. The company said the move allows it to focus exclusively on scaling IM8, which has generated more than $100 million in annualized recurring revenue in just 11 months since launch. According to Yeung, the board and management team unanimously agreed that IM8 represents the clearest path to creating sustainable shareholder value.

While Prenetics will no longer allocate new or existing capital to buy additional bitcoin, it plans to retain its current holdings. The company holds 510 BTC as a reserve asset, valued at nearly $45 million as of Tuesday afternoon Eastern Time.

Prenetics, which is co-founded and backed by English football icon David Beckham, has seen its shares rise approximately 189% year-to-date. By comparison, shares of Michael Saylor’s MSTR have fallen nearly 48%, while bitcoin has declined about 5.6% over the same period.