Avalanche Treasury shares fall 38% on Nasdaq debut after $675 million merger

Avalanche Treasury Co., an AVAX-focused digital asset treasury firm, officially went public on Thursday following the completion of its $675 million merger with a crypto-aligned special purpose acquisition company.

The company, trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "AVAT," said on Thursday that it aims to accelerate Avalanche's growth and provide investors with an opportunity to "participate in the fundamental infrastructure shift toward blockchain."

Bart Smith, CEO of Avalanche Treasury, said the company plans to allocate capital across the Avalanche ecosystem. 

"​​AVAT intends to deploy capital deliberately to compound Avalanche’s ecosystem value over time, much like a corporate treasury," Smith said in the statement. "It is not a bet on price. We believe it is an investment into Avalanche that represents meaningful potential for the repositioning of institutional finance."

AVAT fell 38.1% to close at $1.85 on its first trading day, according to Yahoo Finance, though the stock slightly rebounded 2.7% in after-hours trading.

Meanwhile, AVAX (AVAX) rose 1.27% over the past 24 hours to trade at $6.66, though it remained down 33.7% over the past month, according to The Block's price page.

SPAC merger

In October 2025, the company announced its merger deal with Mountain Lake Acquisition Corp., which included $460 million in projected treasury funding and an initial $200 million discounted AVAX purchase allocation through the Avalanche Foundation.

The company said at the time that it aims to acquire more than $1 billion worth of AVAX over time. Capital will also be deployed into protocol investments, enterprise partnerships, and validator infrastructure.

Notably, the firm's leadership draws from both Wall Street and crypto. Smith previously spent over two decades at Susquehanna and AllianceBernstein, while its COO, Laine Litman, scaled Hidden Road Partners through Ripple's acquisition of the firm, according to the Thursday statement.

Its board and advisory group includes Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer, Dragonfly General Partner Rob Hadick, Blockworks CEO Jason Yanowitz, and Aave founder Stani Kulechov, among other executives. 

The firm has also received backing from a mix of traditional finance and crypto-native institutions, including Dragonfly, ParaFi Capital, VanEck, FalconX, Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, and Kraken.

"Avalanche has earned its place as an enterprise blockchain of choice, and we believe a publicly listed treasury vehicle gives institutions the entry point they've been waiting for," Hadick of Dragonfly said in the statement.

According to the company, Avalanche has attracted more than $1.02 billion in institutional funds and facilitated the tokenization of over $1.65 billion in real-world assets, while supporting more than 550 projects across its ecosystem.

Avalanche Treasury joins a growing list of digital asset treasury firms based on the Layer 1 blockchain, including AVAX One Technology Ltd., an AVAX treasury firm backed by Anthony Scaramucci.