Not your keys - Not your coins = Treasury edition Datavault AI

[Accardo]

For that to drop that low, it only means one thing, probably investors believe the funds will no longer be recovered.

investor fear Datavault would be delisted on NASDAQ for trading less than $1 per share since the last 9 months, the company is facing for the second time a 180 day grace period from Nasdaq. It's like the actions crypto investors would take if an asset is about to be delisted on Binance. Following this negative development, the company will find it very hard to bounce back to $1 per share. Investors would rather choose to sell, than face a total price crash, when it gets delisted.

[rbynxx]

The question I have in mind is how thorough are they or the one that is responsible for this to verify that the BTC was actually accessible before treating it as a treasury asset?

It depends on what defines verification. The BTC was never sent to blockchain (according to coindesk). It was simply credit of 1,309 BTC to a Datavault account inside Biconomy off-chain by Scilex. There was no on-chain transaction and therefore the only way to verify would be to attempt a withdrawal. They have been unable to do this since June.

I don't think the absence of an on-chain transaction necessarily means there was no way to verify the BTC. Exchanges have those data on internal records, and ownership or control over those assets can still be established through independent confirmations, agreements, and proof of withdrawal rights. Biconomy needs to answer first I guess before we jump to conclusions or they probably been answered already but didn't make anything publicly.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

I tried to open the exchange and site not loading at the moment, what is special with biconomy exchange that a whole big firm stores a Treasury money, that's insane and doesn't sound proper.

What happens to a decentralized wallet to store a large sum of crypto in, Datavault board members are out of their mind, these members are children in the game of crypto, this is the worst mistake a Treasury body can ever make. Storing investors Bitcoin on a centralized exchange.

[obuoma]

This is a very bad handling of investors money by Datavault AI and I'm sure they will be facing serious lawsuits. How can you store people's money in a place where you have no control of and turn around to tell them stories. Before now they ought to know how to handle funds entrusted to them and not to give them to exchange where they don't control the keys . This is one of the funniest story I have heard about a company linked to cryptocurrency.  It's even funny that the chose an exchange with no reputation when we have good exchanges out there.

[Die_empty]

I tried to open the exchange and site not loading at the moment, what is special with biconomy exchange that a whole big firm stores a Treasury money, that's insane and doesn't sound proper.

What happens to a decentralized wallet to store a large sum of crypto in, Datavault board members are out of their mind, these members are children in the game of crypto, this is the worst mistake a Treasury body can ever make. Storing investors Bitcoin on a centralized exchange.

The exchange has not released any statement regarding this issue. This is the first time I am hearing the name Bitconomy but it claims that it has millions of users in above 180 countries of the world. I accesses it but they suddenly went offline and I couldn't gain access again.

Some of these crypto investments firms including Strategy keep their coins in centralized exchanges. But they choose reputable ones that are well known. Datavault AI, Scilex and Bitconomy seems to close business partners. Maybe statements from Scilex and Bitconomy will throw  more light about what transpired.

[ObeyKnock]

So Datavault just take their word for it and sent the money to this, I don't know, guarantor/buyer?

Datavault didnt send any money, they issued shares and warrants and got the credit in return. Part of it did turn into real cash though, they sold 491 BTC of that balance back to Scilex for around $40.5M. Remaining ~817 BTC is what got stuck.

I don't think the absence of an on-chain transaction necessarily means there was no way to verify the BTC.

Yes, there are other methods, but I did not go into enough detail about this. My problem is the confirmations and assurances are from either Biconomy or auditors who are likely just asking Biconomy, these arent proving that they can actually pay out the amount they say they have. Withdrawal is the only real test they cannot answer with documentation. Yes, we should wait for confirmation from Biconomy. They didnt reply to Coindesk.

[PVequalNRT]

This is a very bad handling of investors money by Datavault AI and I'm sure they will be facing serious lawsuits. How can you store people's money in a place where you have no control of and turn around to tell them stories. Before now they ought to know how to handle funds entrusted to them and not to give them to exchange where they don't control the keys . This is one of the funniest story I have heard about a company linked to cryptocurrency.  It's even funny that the chose an exchange with no reputation when we have good exchanges out there.

There isn't anywhere they said it was investors money. I think people invested in the shares with hope that the company is having Bitcoin treasury, more like back bone of the company from the part of shares that was sold to Scilex. This is like Saylor waking up one day and part of their Bitcoin reserve are no where to be found or their custody didn't not allow them to withdraw, it's going to cause a havoc to their shares like Datavault has experienced.

These companies need to start doing their custody. They don't have to depend on other people to hold Bitcoin for them. Funny thing is this is coming from an exchange that is not recognized. What if this Datavault and the exchange are both lying to the people.

[Hamza2424]

The funds were credited to the company through an off-chain method. How would they trust the buyer, and why did they choose an off-chain transfer when they were selling their shares? Well, they sold around 400 BTC to them before, but they couldn't sell the rest.

So this is a classic example of "not your keys, not your coins", haha, as the numbers Datavault was seeing were just shown on the dashboard, and in the back, there was nothing.

The third party they used here is the wrong one. Why would someone even trust a third party like this? Any explanation?

[macson]

For a company to entrust hundreds of Bitcoins to a custodian with a questionable reputation doesn't make much sense to me. They should have had better custody options than that service, yet they risked their treasury funds with that exchange, which resulted in losing access to their assets and putting the company at risk. If anyone is to blame, it's those who trusted the exchange so much that they didn't choose a better option.

[aoluain]

What I find interesting is that after losing $90,000,000 their stock price only dropped by 50%,
I would it to crash by 99%. Thats a very naive and expensive oversight or error in judgement.

This just goes to show that there are still people and companies who just dont get the concept of
self custody.

I guess there are also a lot of people who have never visited the forum here and learned the saying
"Not your keys, not your Bitcoin"

[PostQuantumBTC]

For a company to entrust hundreds of Bitcoins to a custodian with a questionable reputation doesn't make much sense to me.

What if the treasury company is not capable of noncustodial or they do not want to bear the loss of their coins? You may be right but did you know that most of these companies have custodial deals while some being hybrid? I think they will have a reason they are going that direction.

[snowpega]

It seems that one of a treasury company [Datavault AI DVLT] that has hosted btc in a exchange ... and since June 2026 they can't be able to withdraw btc! 
Stocks collapsed by 50% - with a reported loss over 90 millions usd from their balance.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/10/28/bitcoin-treasury-datavault-ai-plunges-50-after-firm-says-it-can-t-access-its-btc
Here is the full story from coindesk.

For what I am aware, this should be the first case of something similar with a quoted company!
The "custody with a third party" isn't also useless but unconvenient - or probably the business model has not been refined. An impressive naive error considering the amount involved...

Ah, really, it really feels bad to read about such incidents in the crypto space.
The question is: who is safe while trusting third-party platforms? This case really conveys a big message: no one- not you, not me, and not even big hands. And, honestly, the CeX platform which that company used as custodial, I never heard of this, nor used this ever before. And trusting such platforms can become a very big mistake for one. In the case of a CEX platform, if you are trusting a well-known platform, you must keep in mind that you are still not safe because you don't hold the keys, and in this case, the platform this company chose is not very popular, right?

What a big shame; I was reading some posts from this same thread, and users mentioned it's been four months since this issue happened. And, what a shame the victm still havnt get the justice. What do you think?

[Agbamoni]

Biconomy is the only one with the right to come out in the open and talk their part about what really happened and how they want to handle this loss from here out, is this a loss yet we can't say because they only can't withdraw yet.

It is insane to think the investors who invested their money in Datavault care about the business Datavault has with Biconomy. It is their money they are more concerned about. Datavault should find a way to get the money back.

Biconomy, on the other hand, should explain to Datavault why the BTC cannot be withdrawn. From an investor's point of view, my suspicion is that the two companies are trying to play the investors.

[Obim34]

I tried to open the exchange and site not loading at the moment, what is special with biconomy exchange that a whole big firm stores a Treasury money, that's insane and doesn't sound proper.

The site is not down, that means they are still in operation. I've never heard about this exchange, or heard it talked about them, the Treasury company did settle for the minimum when they chose a less reputable exchange to control their coins.

Firstly, I expect a treasury company to hold its Bitcoin in cold storage, at best a big portion of the company, and secondly, the reputation of a third-party service (exchange) shouldn't be overlooked. Truly, not your keys, not your coins.

[Alphakilo]

What I find interesting is that after losing $90,000,000 their stock price only dropped by 50%,
I would it to crash by 99%. Thats a very naive and expensive oversight or error in judgement.

This just goes to show that there are still people and companies who just dont get the concept of
self custody.

I guess there are also a lot of people who have never visited the forum here and learned the saying
"Not your keys, not your Bitcoin"

I don't think alot of these investors that fall victims to these kind of platforms like this Data vault AI trading exchange ever belonged to a community like this or even know about the 'not your keys, not your Bitcoin,' phrase, otherwise, they would not have fallen for such an illusion of custody by this kind of company because they failed to realize also that they only hold an unsecured IOU and not a proper wallet that's secure with seed phrases and under personal custody.

[Sammysmart001]

I don't think alot of these investors that fall victims to these kind of platforms like this Data vault AI trading exchange ever belonged to a community like this or even know about the 'not your keys, not your Bitcoin,' phrase, otherwise, they would not have fallen for such an illusion of custody by this kind of company because they failed to realize also that they only hold an unsecured IOU and not a proper wallet that's secure with seed phrases and under personal custody.

This are reason why self custody education is very important and needs to continue.
Most users that are entering crypto just see’s price chart and do assume that holding Bitcoin on an exchange is same as holding cash in the bank account. The numbers on the dashboard they trust it not knowing that without your private key all the numbers displaying there are unsecured IOUs.

The fact in the sense that a multi dollar corporate treasury department made this exact mistake with an unknown exchange really shows how misunderstood self custody is. If big companies can really fall for all this how many of our retail beginner are making this mistakes.

[shinratensei_]

Yes, there are other methods, but I did not go into enough detail about this. My problem is the confirmations and assurances are from either Biconomy or auditors who are likely just asking Biconomy, these arent proving that they can actually pay out the amount they say they have. Withdrawal is the only real test they cannot answer with documentation. Yes, we should wait for confirmation from Biconomy. They didnt reply to Coindesk.

Sounds like something really wrong is happening with Biconomy, it could be a liquidity run but it's just speculation until they confirmed themselves. From this problem, I also learned about the importance of not trusting low tier off-shore exchange even when it comes to B2B. Honestly, it's ridiculous how Datavault AI don't even bother to withdraw until recently, the deal happened in 2025 and they withdrawn the bitcoin like 7 months after or so, they simply trusted Biconomy too much in this case. Those off-chain credits means absolutely nothing and this company failed to see it.

[bitbollo]

That's interesting to see that this exchange was already "red tagged" also in trustpilot.
It would be interesting to know the reason for such choices. Any connection with management of this exchange? Any specific reason to choose this?

@pooya87 thanks for share, but probably there are also other reasons for this "vertical" collapse in the last 8 years.
Anyway, in perspective, they have lose another 50% of their value in these days.
the narrative about self-custody (incident after incident) has been already plotted.
despite has always been something "easy" to do - probably much easier that deal with burocracy - now it seems they want push the narrative that there are few options than trusting a third party with something that has just bitcoin on paper.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

It is a small company. Its market capitalisation is just $65M (or $130 before yesterday’s fall).

I don't think market cap or being a small company is an excuse here.

An excuse? Your dead brain is not an excuse. Companies don’t hold their assets themselves, and Bitcoin was never going to be an exception. If your dead brain had been working properly, you’d have included the part of the quote you left out.

Their assets are held separately by a specialist organisation, which is insured, and these companies do not use the bitcoin P2P.

It's small company but its bad practice...

What is bad practice to criticise companies without understanding how they work.

Exactly. Whether the market cap is large or small, it shouldn't be an excuse for them not to provide a valid reason for their failure.

Yet another one who can’t read. Come on, smart alec, explain to me what the ‘excuse’ is when both large and small companies do the same thing.

This just goes to show that there are still people and companies who just dont get the concept of
self custody.

Go and explain that to Michael Saylor, who also holds Strategy’s Bitcoins with a custodian. So, according to you he 'doesn't get' the concept of self-custody?

What you all don't get is how companies works as for managing their assets.