Unable to recover 817 bitcoin, Datavault AI (DVLT.US) stock price slashed in half

According to Woofun AI, Datavault (DVLT.US) suffered a sharp decline in its stock price on Tuesday, plummeting by 49.55% to close at $0.067 with a trading volume of approximately 244 million shares. The core reason is that since June, the company has been unable to withdraw its Bitcoin holdings from the wallet maintained on the crypto trading platform Biconomy.

This liquidity shortfall has forced Datavault AI to rework its financial statements, fundamentally changing market expectations regarding its asset status.

The more crucial variable concerns the nature of this asset transfer. Back in September 2025, Datavault reached an agreement with Scilex Holding Company (SCLX.US), under which the latter agreed to purchase $150 million worth of Datavault shares and warrants using Bitcoin. Scilex transferred 1,309.04 Bitcoins to Datavault’s account on Biconomy via an off-chain transfer, rather than a transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain. Subsequently, Datavault sold 491.4 Bitcoins back to Scilex for cash at a price of about $40.5 million, but 817.64 Bitcoins remain in the Biconomy account and cannot currently be withdrawn.

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, Scilex disclosed in its June financial report that it had used $200 million worth of subsidiary Semnur’s shares to exchange for Bitcoin, from which $150 million was allocated to purchase Datavault securities, with Biconomy involved in the Bitcoin supply for this investment.

However, Datavault stated that when it attempted to transfer these Bitcoins to external accounts in June, the transfer was unsuccessful, and as of Monday when the report was submitted, the transfer had still not been completed.

In the same document, the company further warned that this restatement may lead to a delay in the submission of the third quarter 2026 report and could pose a Nasdaq listing compliance risk; management has not yet completed its assessment as to whether this matter constitutes a material internal control deficiency.

Structurally, Datavault currently believes that the Bitcoins invested through Scilex should be regarded as unpaid share subscriptions by Scilex, which ought to be counted as shareholder equity rather than included among the company’s cryptoassets.

This accounting reclassification will have far-reaching impacts: the adjustment is expected to reduce total assets by $8.1 million, $92.2 million, $57.1 million, and $49 million as of September 30, 2025; December 31, 2025; March 31, 2026; and June 30, 2026, respectively. Previously, Datavault had treated these Bitcoin balances as funds available to support business operations, but it now must reevaluate this position and acknowledge that this portion of assets is essentially not freely available.

As of Wednesday Asia time, CoinDesk had contacted Biconomy about the withdrawal requests and the issue of Bitcoins supporting the Datavault account, but had not yet received a response. This is yet another case—following several similar off-chain asset disputes at other crypto custodians—in which a disconnect between private agreements and on-chain confirmation has triggered a crisis of trust, highlighting the significant compliance and execution risks under non-transparent asset transfer models.