Datavault AI Sold $150M of Stock for Bitcoin. It's Been Trying to Withdraw That Bitcoin Since June. Now It Says the Bitcoin Was Never an Asset

Here’s how a “bitcoin treasury” deal is supposed to work. A buyer pays for your stock in BTC, the coins land in your wallet, and you put them on the balance sheet.

Here’s how it went for Datavault AI (Nasdaq: DVLT):

• September 2025: Scilex Holding agrees to buy Datavault stock for $150 million, paid in bitcoin
• The coins never move on-chain. They’re credited to a Datavault account at Biconomy exchange, through an off-chain transfer (The Block)
• June 2026: Datavault asks to withdraw the bitcoin to an external account
• October 26, 2026: Datavault files an 8-K saying it has “been unable to complete the withdrawal.” The filing gives no reason
• The same filing says the bitcoin should never have been booked as a company asset

The stock fell about 50% the next day.

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The Deal

The terms, from the 8-K as summarized by The Block and CoinMarketCap:

Buyer	Scilex Holding
Price	$150M, payable in BTC
BTC owed	~1,328.43 BTC at $112,915.52 per coin
BTC credited	~1,309 BTC, in September and November 2025
Why fewer	~19.4 BTC netted out for cash advances Scilex had already made to Datavault
Where	A Datavault account at Biconomy Pte. Ltd.
Sold back to Scilex	~491 BTC for about $40.5M cash, between September 2025 and January 2026 (BTC count per CoinMarketCap)

To be clear, this is Biconomy the Singapore crypto exchange. It isn’t the account-abstraction infrastructure project that shares the name.

At $112,915 per coin, 491 BTC is worth about $55M. Datavault sold it back for $40.5M. By our math, that’s roughly $82,500 per bitcoin, about 27% below the price used in the original deal.

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”Unable to Complete the Withdrawal”

That phrase is about as much explanation as the 8-K gives. It doesn’t say:

• why the withdrawal hasn’t gone through
• whether Biconomy has frozen the account, or is just slow-walking it
• how much BTC is still in the account

The Block says it asked Datavault and Scilex for comment. Neither reply has been reported. Biconomy hasn’t said anything publicly either.

Remember that the transfer was off-chain, per The Block. If so, no bitcoin ever moved on the blockchain. Datavault’s “bitcoin” was a balance in an exchange’s internal ledger, and four months of failed withdrawals show what a ledger entry is worth.

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The Bitcoin Was Never an Asset

This part is worse than the stuck withdrawal.

Datavault now says the bitcoin didn’t qualify as a company digital asset. It should have been recorded as a subscription receivable, meaning money it’s still owed for the shares. Under accounting rules, that’s a reduction of stockholders’ equity, not an asset (CoinMarketCap).

So Datavault says more than a year of financial statements can’t be relied on:

Period	Total assets overstated by
Sept 30, 2025 (Q3 10-Q)	$8.1M
Dec 31, 2025 (FY 10-K)	$92.2M
Mar 31, 2026 (Q1 10-Q)	$57.1M
June 30, 2026 (Q2 10-Q)	$49.0M

Source: The Block.

Datavault also says:

• the numbers aren’t final and it may find more errors
• it hasn’t set a date for the restated filings
• it’s reassessing whether it can continue as a going concern, because it had counted on the bitcoin for liquidity and “collection of amounts from Scilex remains uncertain”

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The Market’s Verdict

• Tuesday, Oct 27: DVLT closed around $0.067, down from $0.133 the day before, a drop of about 49.6%
• Volume: close to 250 million shares, about 8x the previous session

A company that announced a $150M bitcoin deal now trades for under seven cents a share.

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Why This Matters for Crypto Jobs

1. Custody due diligence is now a job, not a checkbox. “Credited to our account at an exchange” turned out to mean nothing when Datavault needed the coins. Every company holding crypto needs people who ask where it is, who holds the keys, and whether a test withdrawal has ever worked. Treasury ops and custody risk roles that do this are getting easier to justify.

2. Crypto accountants who know classification are scarce. Datavault’s restatement isn’t about price swings. It’s about whether something counts as a digital asset at all, or as a receivable. Auditors, controllers, and SEC reporting staff who can make that call before the 10-K goes out are worth far more than the cost of a restatement.

3. Check your employer if it’s a “bitcoin treasury company.” Dozens of small caps turned into BTC treasuries in 2025. If you’re interviewing at one, ask where the coins sit and whether they’ve ever been withdrawn on-chain. If the treasury is the business model and it’s stuck on an exchange, so is your equity.

4. Counterparty and exchange risk analysts. A Nasdaq company left nine figures of BTC on a Singapore exchange. Funds, corporates, and market makers will keep paying people who can grade those venues before money goes in.

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The Bottom Line

Datavault AI traded $150M of stock for bitcoin it may never have controlled. After four months of failed withdrawals, it’s now telling investors the coins never belonged on its balance sheet in the first place. Not your keys, not your coins, and apparently not your assets either.

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