A little-known tech company supposedly received a bitcoin-denominated payment for shares in its company into a crypto exchange account last year, but now the company says it cannot access the roughly $65 million worth of bitcoin that remains from that associated transaction.
Here’s how it all went down. Datavault AI Inc. received bitcoin as payment in a September 2025 securities purchase agreement with Scilex Holding Company. Under the deal, Scilex agreed to buy 15 million shares of Datavault common stock plus a pre-funded warrant covering another 263,914,094 shares for $150 million, payable as roughly 1,328.43 bitcoin.
Scilex credited 1,309.04 bitcoin to a digital wallet Datavault maintained at Biconomy Pte. Ltd. through off-chain transfers on September 26th and November 25th, 2025, after a 19.39 bitcoin reduction in the amount for cash advances. Between September 26th, 2025, and January 30th, 2026, Datavault sold 491.431 of those credited bitcoin back to Scilex through similar off-chain transfers for approximately $40.5 million in cash. The remaining balance, around 817.6 bitcoin, has sat on the exchange since then. At recent prices near $80,000, that stack is worth roughly $65 million. However, Datavault has been unable to complete a withdrawal of the coins to an external account since requesting the transfer in June.
There is also an unresolved agreement involving that balance. On June 24, 2026, Scilex and Datavault signed a binding term sheet for Scilex to purchase 837 bitcoin held in the Biconomy wallet for $50 million. The proposed payment included $30 million upfront and the remaining $20 million in quarterly installments through December 2028. The finalization of the transaction was subject to a definitive agreement and customary closing conditions.
In subsequent quarterly filings, both companies said a definitive agreement had not been entered into, and as of Datavault’s October 26 filing, neither company had publicly disclosed that the deal had closed or been terminated.
I never heard of either of these companies and I’ve been in the industry for a minute.
But the lesson is very familiar… I only wish there were … some sort of …alliterative catchphrase for it https://t.co/8CMcZDmebO
— m/arc 🧭 (@MarcHochstein) October 27, 2026
The company disclosed the stalled withdrawal and related accounting problems in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26th. “In June 2026, the Company requested a withdrawal of Bitcoin from the digital wallet maintained at Biconomy to an external account and has, as of the date of this Current Report on Form 8-K, been unable to complete the withdrawal,” the filing states.
Datavault determined the bitcoin “did not meet the requirements for recognition as a digital asset of the Company” and will instead record it as a subscription receivable from Scilex, reducing stockholders’ equity and reversing the associated bitcoin gains and losses. The filing adds that prior financial statements can no longer be relied upon and that management is reassessing the company’s going-concern evaluation because collection from Scilex is uncertain and the firm had treated the bitcoin as available liquidity.
Casa co-founder and Chief Security Officer Jameson Lopp posted on X that “A Bitcoin treasury company (@Datavault_ai $DVLT) just crashed because they informed investors that they haven’t been able to withdraw BTC from the exchange (@BiconomyCom) that is holding all their treasury funds after 4 months of transfer requests.”
Unchained later reported that the stock rebounded about 31% on Wednesday to roughly $0.088 on high volume, after falling from $0.13 on Monday to about $0.067 on Tuesday. However, neither Datavault nor Scilex had made a new SEC filing to explain the rebound, and Unchained did not identify a specific catalyst.
Notably, Datavault says the funds are held on a crypto exchange called Biconomy. It is unclear why this exchange would be used, as it is rather obscure and not well known. Galaxy Research vice president and editor Marc Hochstein, who was also previously a longtime crypto and financial journalist, quoted Lopp’s post and added: “I never heard of either of these companies and I’ve been in the industry for a minute. But the lesson is very familiar… I only wish there were … some sort of …alliterative catchphrase for it.”
Here, Hochstein is likely making a reference to the common “not your keys, not your coins” saying in crypto.
Not a Full-Fledged Bitcoin Treasury Company
According to Datavault AI’s official investor-relations website, the company describes itself as an AI-focused technology-licensing business. In other words, Datavault is not a pure-play, leveraged bitcoin treasury company in the mold of Strategy. Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, began acquiring bitcoin in August 2020 with an initial $250 million purchase and has since turned its equity and preferred stock issuance into a vehicle for accumulating hundreds of thousands of bitcoin as its primary strategy.
Datavault’s bitcoin arrived as payment for shares and warrants in a financing deal rather than through an ongoing accumulation program, and the coins were credited via internal exchange balances rather than on-chain transfers to a company-controlled wallet.
What Is Known About Biconomy
The entity named in Datavault’s October 26 SEC filing is “BICONOMY PTE. LTD.”, which the filing identifies as the operator of the digital wallet where Scilex credited the bitcoin. Biconomy.com’s own privacy policy likewise says “BICONOMY PTE. LTD.” operates the website and related applications and was registered in 2022. It should be noted that the platform is distinct from Biconomy.io, a separate decentralized-finance infrastructure project.
A Biconomy Exchange help-center page says the exchange is licensed by Malaysia’s Securities Commission. However, the regulator’s published list of registered digital asset exchanges, last updated July 20, 2026, does not list Biconomy among the registered operators.
CoinDesk reported that it contacted Biconomy about the withdrawal and the bitcoin backing Datavault’s account but received no response. Datavault’s filing does not explain why the withdrawal has remained incomplete or what specifically prevented it.
Scilex’s own relationship with Biconomy notably predates the Datavault transaction. On September 24, 2025, Scilex announced a non-binding, non-exclusive memorandum of understanding with Biconomy.com to explore crypto trading services and treasury-management strategies. The next day, Scilex completed a separate transaction in which it sold shares of its Semnur Pharmaceuticals subsidiary to Biconomy Pte. Ltd. for bitcoin, according to Scilex’s SEC filing. Scilex then used $150 million worth of bitcoin in its investment in Datavault.
Datavault’s October 26 filing lists among the risks the outcome of efforts “to collect amounts from Scilex or obtain the cooperation of Biconomy.”
Bitcoin Treasury Companies Face a Different Market
An increasing number of publicly traded companies have added bitcoin to their balance sheets over the past couple of years after Strategy pioneered the approach in 2020. Despite bitcoin’s decline to around $60,000 earlier this year from the all-time high of roughly $125,000 in October last year, Strategy survived outsider claims that the company was destined for a “death spiral” over the summer.
Bitdeer #BTC Weekly Update
🔹 BTC Holdings: 0 (pure holdings, excluding customer deposits)
🔹 BTC Output: 283.4 BTC
🔹 BTC Sold: 283.4 BTC
🔹 Net BTC Added: 0 BTC
📅 Data as of October 23, 2026.#Bitcoin #BTC #BitcoinHoldings #BitcoinCommunity #BTCMining $BTDR pic.twitter.com/jvEcOdaBY3— Bitdeer (@Bitdeer) October 24, 2026
That said, several other bitcoin treasury companies have abandoned the concept. Additionally, bitcoin miners have been increasingly diversifying into AI over the past year or so. Bitdeer also sold off the entirety of its bitcoin stack and has continued reporting zero pure bitcoin holdings while selling newly mined coins, directing that liquidity toward AI infrastructure.
Strategy itself sold a small amount of bitcoin earlier this year to cover preferred dividends, a move the company described as inoculating the market against the idea that it could never sell.
