Nasdaq Boots Windtree a Month After $700M BNB Treasury Pivot Fails to Lift Stock

Windtree Therapeutics, a Pennsylvania-based drug developer, is being delisted from Nasdaq, just over a month after its $700 million pivot into a digital treasury firm focused on Binance’s BNB token failed to boost its stock above the exchange’s requirements.

In an SEC filing published Tuesday, Windtree confirmed trading of its stock on Nasdaq would be suspended at the open on Thursday, August 21, for failing to maintain the $1-per-share minimum bid price. Windtree shares are down 77% on the day to just $0.11.

Windtree listed its stock on Nasdaq in May 2020 but has repeatedly struggled to meet listing standards.

The exchange moved to suspend Windtree’s shares after several bid-price violations since at least June 2022, with its third and most recent deficiency warning handed down in December last year, according to a 2023  SEC filing listed by the drug developer.

Windtree and Nasdaq did not immediately return Decrypt’s request for comment.

Late last month, Windtree announced that it would commit and buy up to $700 million in Binance’s BNB token, just a day after that crypto hit a new all-time high.

While Windtree briefly regained its compliance earlier in March this year, it later lost course as a turbulent pullback in the crypto market began rolling over the past week.

Several publicly-listed treasury companies‘ shares have been diving or slowing in lockstep, including stock from KindlyMD, SharpLink, Coinbase, and Strategy, which hit a 4-month low on Wednesday amid a broader crypto stock slump.

As a result of the suspension, the company is moving to the over-the-counter market under the same ticker, WINT. Unlike Nasdaq, which imposes strict listing standards such as minimum bid prices and equity thresholds, OTC venues operate with looser requirements and typically provide less liquidity and visibility.

“Distressed firms face a structural mismatch with DAT models,” Ryan Yoon, senior analyst at Tiger Research, told Decrypt. “While they may initially raise funds despite lacking credibility, subsequent capital raises become increasingly difficult as market skepticism grows.” 

Digital asset treasuries rely on “premium-based funding, but struggling companies can’t sustain NAV premiums long-term,” Yoon said.

Net asset value, or NAV, is the total value of a company’s assets minus its liabilities, expressed on a per-share basis. It shows whether a company’s stock price is higher or lower than the value of its total assets, including those that aren’t from digital assets.

“This creates a reverse flywheel during market downturns: asset decline → forced liquidation → further decline,” Yoon explained.

For one, Yoon points to Michael Saylor’s Strategy as having a “powerful narrative in crypto markets” that has created “a template that struggling public companies attempt to replicate.”

Yet “unlike established DAT firms with operational frameworks,” financially struggling companies suddenly pivoting to become digital asset treasury firms “typically lack substance beyond the narrative itself,” Yoon said.