A real-estate technology company is spiking after pivoting to crypto

Today’s small company you’ve never heard of that’s trading more than most of the megacaps in the Magnificent 7: reAlpha Tech, which is up more than 50% in the premarket. It’s the ninth-most-traded US issue as of 8:45 a.m. ET, with more money changing hands trading these shares than any of Apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, or Alphabet, to name a few.

The company, based in Dublin, Ohio, bills itself as the “real estate superapp” and “the world’s first commission-free AI homebuying platform.”

As has often been the case in penny-stock booms of late, the advance appears to arise from the marriage of two buzzwords. In this case, “AI” + “crypto.”

On December 19, the company announced that “its board of directors approved a cryptocurrency investment policy and the adoption of certain cryptocurrencies as its primary treasury reserve assets,” joining the likes of MicroStrategy, MARA Holdings Holdings, Tesla, and Hut 8. The stock surged more than 30% that day.

That same day, management also announced a share offering. (The share offering is still listed as pending, for now, and the big spikes in premarket volume today come in up moves rather than down ones for the stock.)

The real-estate technology company had just $7.1 million in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of the third quarter, seemingly making its choice of preferred reserve asset immaterial to the performance of that asset.

reAlpha has a history of quick trips aboard the hype train: when the stock was initially listed on the Nasdaq, it spiked by more than 1,600% in its first day, only to give up two-thirds of that advance in the after-hours session.