(Fingers hovered over the keyboard for three seconds, ultimately deciding to delete the initial draft that stated 'the allocation of Bitcoin by public companies is an unstoppable trend')
Damn, I was still confidently saying in the community yesterday that Prenetics' withdrawal was just an isolated incident. As a result, when I saw their stock price surge by 12% in a single day this morning, I almost dropped my phone.
We all misjudged the rules of this game.
I thought the market would vote with its feet to punish the 'traitors'—after all, every time MicroStrategy increased its Bitcoin holdings last year, the stock price rose in conjunction with BTC. This narrative was too perfect, perfect enough to create an illusion: that a public company's allocation of Bitcoin equates to value discovery, and withdrawal is self-sabotage.
But Prenetics gave us a resounding slap in the face.
The announcement of their cancellation of the reserve plan hides a key phrase: 'concentrate resources on core diagnostic business.' What did the market understand? disciplined capital allocation. Institutional investors voted with real money, telling the world: in the current environment, focusing on the main business is more valuable than chasing the crypto narrative.
I searched through the data on the Bloomberg terminal:
The cumulative increase over five days after the announcement is 19%, far exceeding the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index.
Implied volatility of options has decreased instead of increased.
Sell-side analysts collectively raised ratings.
What is the most face-slapping detail? The listed companies that announced increased holdings in Bitcoin during the same period had an average stock price that underperformed the market by 3.7%. This contrast is too glaring—what we thought was a brave game might be seen as reckless betting by traditional capital.
I remember a conversation with a hedge fund friend who awakened me with one sentence: 'Now buying biotech stocks, what we want is exposure to test tubes and reagents, not exposure to crypto price fluctuations.' What institutions want is purity, while crypto is becoming a distraction.
So don't blame the market for being ruthless; it's us who are too one-sided. When real yield becomes the pricing anchor again, all narratives of 'poetry and distant lands' must undergo the brutal present value test.
This cognitive awakening comes at the right time—allocating Bitcoin by listed companies has never been a must-answer question, but a calculation of risk-return ratio. Those who are silent with their keyboards today may be the ones who truly understand the game at the table.
(I just changed the pinned message in the community to: 'All investment decisions are ultimately a battle of opportunity costs.')