Avalanche Treasury Falls 38% to $1.85 in Nasdaq Debut

Avalanche Treasury Co. shares fell about 38% to $1.85 on Thursday in their Nasdaq debut after the company completed a $675 million merger with special-purpose acquisition company Mountain Lake Acquisition Corp., trading under the ticker AVAT.

The merger, first announced in October, brought Avalanche Treasury into public markets through the SPAC transaction. The stock began trading on Nasdaq on Thursday.

Bart Smith, a former executive at Susquehanna and AllianceBernstein, leads Avalanche Treasury. The company plans to operate as both a digital asset treasury and an operating business and intends to allocate capital to generate long-term value for the Avalanche network.

Bart Smith described the approach: “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. Our Nasdaq listing is designed to provide greater access to this infrastructure shift at the ground level.”

The debut occurred amid a broader pullback in digital asset treasury stocks. Those companies drew investor interest when rising cryptocurrency prices made publicly traded shares a way to gain exposure to tokens; that interest has eased as major tokens entered extended downtrends.

Avalanche’s native token AVAX traded near $6.60 on Thursday, down about 33.8% over the past month and more than 95% below its 2021 all-time high. Declines in AVAX have affected investor appetite for equities tied to crypto ecosystems.

Trading in coming sessions will show whether investors separate Avalanche Treasury’s operating and treasury strategy from movements in AVAX’s price. The company says its model focuses on strategic capital allocation within the Avalanche ecosystem rather than short-term token price bets.