TikTok Backlash as Congress Heads for Vote to Force Sale
By Janet H. Cho
Fri, Mar 8, 2024 10:10am
2 min
2 min
TikTok urged its users to call Congress and lawmakers to drop a bill that could ban the popular video-sharing app in the U.S., and those users listened.
But the plan backfired. Instead of dropping the bill, which was introduced just two days ago, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved it in a 50-0 vote Thursday afternoon. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he’s bringing it to a floor vote.
That was after beleaguered house staffers across the Capitol grounds endured hours of office phones ringing off the hook in an all-out push from TikTok users.
While TikTok the company has criticized efforts to ban it or crack down on it, this week’s legislative move prompted the social media company to appeal directly to users.
“TikTok is at risk of being shut down in the U.S. Call your representative now,” the app told its users when they logged into their accounts.
The app asked users to enter their ZIP codes and then directed them to their local congressional representatives.
TikTok was responding to a measure proposed Tuesday by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R, Wisc.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D, Ill.), co-chairs of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, that claims TikTok “poses a grave threat to U.S. national security.”
TikTok, based in Singapore, is owned by China-based ByteDance, and that’s what lawmakers object to. The measure focuses on “foreign adversary controlled applications.” It would require ByteDance to divest of TikTok about five months after the law is passed, or risk being removed from app stores in the U.S.
That would make it illegal to distribute TikTok through any U.S. app store or from any U.S. web-hosting platform. TikTok says that is effectively a ban of the platform.
A TikTok spokesperson told Barron’s that “This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States.”
“The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” spokesperson Alex Haurek said. “This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and others have repeatedly insisted that ByteDance and TikTok aren’t controlled by the Chinese government or Chinese Communist Party, and that U.S. user data is stored securely in Singapore and the U.S.
Krishnamoorthi said on X that TikTok has “launched a massive propaganda campaign, requiring users to call their representatives, and falsely labeling our legislation a ‘total ban’ of TikTok.”
“Phones are completely bogged down hearing from students, young adults, adults, and business owners who are all concerned at the option of losing their access to the platform,” a Republican aide told Axios.
The National Security Council has called the bill “an important and welcome step” to addressing risks to sensitive U.S. data, and the White House has said that if Congress passes it, President Joe Biden would sign it.
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Selloff in bitcoin and other digital tokens hits crypto-treasury companies.
By GREGORY ZUCKERMAN AND VICKY GE HUANG
Mon, Nov 10, 2025 3 min
3 min
The hottest crypto trade has turned cold. Some investors are saying “told you so,” while others are doubling down.
It was the move to make for much of the year: Sell shares or borrow money, then plough the cash into bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies. Investors bid up shares of these “crypto-treasury” companies, seeing them as a way to turbocharge wagers on the volatile crypto market.
Michael Saylor pioneered the move in 2020 when he transformed a tiny software company, then called MicroStrategy , into a bitcoin whale now known as Strategy. But with bitcoin and ether prices now tumbling, so are shares in Strategy and its copycats. Strategy was worth around $128 billion at its peak in July; it is now worth about $70 billion.
The selloff is hitting big-name investors, including Peter Thiel, the famed venture capitalist who has backed multiple crypto-treasury companies, as well as individuals who followed evangelists into these stocks.
Saylor, for his part, has remained characteristically bullish, taking to social media to declare that bitcoin is on sale. Sceptics have been anticipating the pullback, given that crypto treasuries often trade at a premium to the underlying value of the tokens they hold.
“The whole concept makes no sense to me. You are just paying $2 for a one-dollar bill,” said Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra Markets. “Eventually those premiums will compress.”
When they first appeared, crypto-treasury companies also gave institutional investors who previously couldn’t easily access crypto a way to invest. Crypto exchange-traded funds that became available over the past two years now offer the same solution.
BitMine Immersion Technologies , a big ether-treasury company backed by Thiel and run by veteran Wall Street strategist Tom Lee , is down more than 30% over the past month.
ETHZilla , which transformed itself from a biotech company to an ether treasury and counts Thiel as an investor, is down 23% in a month.
Crypto prices rallied for much of the year, driven by the crypto-friendly Trump administration. The frenzy around crypto treasuries further boosted token prices. But the bullish run abruptly ended on Oct. 10, when President Trump’s surprise tariff announcement against China triggered a selloff.
A record-long government shutdown and uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve monetary policy also have weighed on prices.
Bitcoin prices have fallen 15% in the past month. Strategy is off 26% over that same period, while Matthew Tuttle’s related ETF—MSTU—which aims for a return that is twice that of Strategy, has fallen 50%.
“Digital asset treasury companies are basically leveraged crypto assets, so when crypto falls, they will fall more,” Tuttle said. “Bitcoin has shown that it’s not going anywhere and that you get rewarded for buying the dips.”
At least one big-name investor is adjusting his portfolio after the tumble of these shares. Jim Chanos , who closed his hedge funds in 2023 but still trades his own money and advises clients, had been shorting Strategy and buying bitcoin, arguing that it made little sense for investors to pay up for Saylor’s company when they can buy bitcoin on their own. On Friday, he told clients it was time to unwind that trade.
Crypto-treasury stocks remain overpriced, he said in an interview on Sunday, partly because their shares retain a higher value than the crypto these companies hold, but the levels are no longer exorbitant. “The thesis has largely played out,” he wrote to clients.
Many of the companies that raised cash to buy cryptocurrencies are unlikely to face short-term crises as long as their crypto holdings retain value. Some have raised so much money that they are still sitting on a lot of cash they can use to buy crypto at lower prices or even acquire rivals.
But companies facing losses will find it challenging to sell new shares to buy more cryptocurrencies, analysts say, potentially putting pressure on crypto prices while raising questions about the business models of these companies.
“A lot of them are stuck,” said Matt Cole, the chief executive officer of Strive, a bitcoin-treasury company. Strive raised money earlier this year to buy bitcoin at an average price more than 10% above its current level.
Strive’s shares have tumbled 28% in the past month. He said Strive is well-positioned to “ride out the volatility” because it recently raised money with preferred shares instead of debt.
Cole Grinde, a 29-year-old investor in Seattle, purchased about $100,000 worth of BitMine at about $45 a share when it started stockpiling ether earlier this year. He has lost about $10,000 on the investment so far.
Nonetheless, Grinde, a beverage-industry salesman, says he’s increasing his stake. He sells BitMine options to help offset losses. He attributes his conviction in the company to the growing popularity of the Ethereum blockchain—the network that issues the ether token—and Lee’s influence.
“I think his network and his pizzazz have helped the stock skyrocket since he took over,” he said of Lee, who spent 15 years at JPMorgan Chase, is a managing partner at Fundstrat Global Advisors and a frequent business-television commentator.
