Bitcoin treasury stock’s near-total wipeout revives scrutiny of its chairman’s record

Shares in Hyperscale Data, a US-listed company that adopted a Michael Saylor-inspired bitcoin acquisition strategy last September, fell below $0.14 this week, according to Protos. The collapse has reopened questions over corporate governance standards among the wave of smaller firms that have rebranded themselves as bitcoin treasury vehicles, given that the company’s executive chairman has previously faced sanctions from both the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Hyperscale Data, listed on NYSE American under the ticker GPUS, launched what it called a $100 million “strategy” on 15 September 2025, describing it as “similar to the approach pioneered by MicroStrategy,” Protos reports. Chief executive William B. Horne called the move “pivotal” at the time, saying it would “create long-term value for our shareholders.” The stock has since fallen roughly 80%.

A history of rebrands and reverse splits

The company’s corporate history stretches back to 1969, when it operated as Digital Power Corporation, an electronics manufacturer. On a split-adjusted basis, its stock reached a peak of $2,131,598,848 during the dot-com bubble in September 2000, according to Protos’s analysis of TradingView data.

The firm pivoted to bitcoin mining in August 2017, when its split-adjusted price traded above $121,000,000. By the time it shifted again last September, this time to a bitcoin treasury model, the same stock had already fallen below $0.72.

Along the way the company has changed its name at least five times: to DPW Holdings in December 2017, Ault Global Holdings in January 2021, BitNile Holdings in 2022, Ault Alliance in 2023, and finally Hyperscale Data in September 2024. Five reverse stock splits, at ratios ranging from 1-for-20 to 1-for-300, have compressed the share count by more than 200 million to one — the only reason the stock still trades above one penny, Protos notes. Yahoo Finance’s all-time return figure for the stock currently rounds to -100.00%.

Regulatory sanctions against the chairman

Presiding over the successive rebrands has been executive chairman Milton “Todd” Ault III. FINRA fined Ault $75,000, suspended him for two years, and ordered more than $312,000 in restitution in 2012, according to Protos. The SEC separately charged Ault and other company executives in August 2023.

The company paid $700,000 to settle the SEC case, with Ault paying roughly $235,000 more, neither admitting nor denying the conduct alleged in the complaint. The regulatory history predates the firm’s most recent pivot into digital assets, but it adds context for investors assessing the governance credentials of smaller companies adopting bitcoin treasury strategies popularised by MicroStrategy.

Hyperscale Data now describes itself as a “pure play” in artificial intelligence and digital assets, according to Protos. The episode arrives as a broader cohort of small and mid-cap firms has sought to replicate MicroStrategy’s bitcoin accumulation model, with mixed results and, in several cases, sharp declines in equity value following the initial announcement effect.

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