ORBS makes strategic investments in category-defining corporations, together with OpenAI and Beast Industries
Tom Lee, Chairman of Bitmine (NYSE: BMNR), joins board of administrators to assist ORBS’ long-term funding technique
ARK Make investments joins ORBS as a associate, offering strategic advisory and personal market intelligence; commits $25 million to ORBS
Brett Winton, Chief Futurist at ARK Make investments, will be a part of as an advisor to ORBS’ Board
Payward, the mum or dad firm of worldwide crypto platform Kraken, commits $25 million to ORBS
The Firm is supported by a gaggle of strategic and institutional buyers together with: Bitmine Immersion Applied sciences (BMNR), MOZAYYX, ARK Make investments, Payward, World Basis, Coinfund, Discovery Capital Administration, FalconX, Pantera, GSR, and extra
EASTON, Pa., March 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Eightco Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: ORBS) (“ORBS” or the “Firm”) right this moment introduced $125 million in new funding commitments led by $75 million from Bitmine (NYSE: BMNR) with a dedication of not less than $25 million from ARK Make investments. Payward, the mum or dad firm of worldwide crypto platform Kraken, has additionally dedicated $25 million to ORBS. The capital helps ORBS’ growth into investing in know-how shaping the following era of synthetic intelligence, blockchain infrastructure, and world digital client platforms.
ORBS additionally introduced closing its preliminary strategic investments of $50 million in OpenAI and $25 million in MrBeast and Beast Industries. These investments place ORBS as a hub on the middle of key frontier AI applied sciences and content material creation, increasing its portfolio to incorporate possession stakes in world-leading innovators. The corporate continues to carry Worldcoin, co-founded by Sam Altman, and Ethereum as a long-term believer within the ERC-20 protocol.
The corporate has appointed Tom Lee, Chairman of Bitmine, to hitch ORBS’ Board of Administrators. Brett Winton, Chief Futurist at ARK Make investments, will function an advisor to the Board of ORBS. Dan Ives will step down as Chairman of ORBS.
“Bitmine invested in ORBS as we consider this firm sits on the middle of a number of the most vital future wants and developments for AI,” stated Tom Lee, Chairman of Bitmine and newly appointed impartial director of ORBS. “To me, there’s great synergy between Proof of Human (Worldcoin), the OpenAI foundational fashions, and connectivity to the best content material creator on the earth, MrBeast. And the ARK funding workforce, identified for his or her pioneering work on figuring out exponential alternatives, is additional fueling synergy and innovation on this firm.”
World was constructed to deal with the essential concern of distinguishing between actual people and bots within the AI period. On the creation of World, Sam Altman has famous, “We would have liked some type of method for figuring out, authenticating people within the age of AGI. We would have liked a method that we might know what content material was made by a human, by an AI. We needed a solution to ensure that people stayed particular and central in a world the place the web was going to have a lot of AI-driven content material. We needed a method to consider how we had been going to distribute entry to those techniques.”
“ORBS is taking over a singular initiative on the intersection of AI, blockchain, and creator pushed platforms,” stated Cathie Wooden, Founder, CEO and CIO of ARK Make investments. “At ARK Make investments, we concentrate on applied sciences which have the potential to remodel the worldwide economic system. We’re excited to be partnering with ORBS to assist their technique as these applied sciences scale over the approaching decade.”
“Technological revolutions are inclined to observe power-law dynamics: a small variety of platforms seize a disproportionate share of worth. ORBS is positioning itself on the intersection of three such compounding networks, AI, cryptographic infrastructure, and world digital distribution,” stated Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken and Payward. “Capital deployed at that convergence has the potential to scale non-linearly, and we’re excited to assist a method designed to seize that asymmetry.”
ABOUT EIGHTCO HOLDINGS INC.
Eightco Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: ORBS) is increasing its mission to personal stakes in main AI mannequin, OpenAI and main content material creator, MrBeast and Beast Industries. Via strategic investments and partnerships, ORBS sits on the intersection of blockchain infrastructure, synthetic intelligence, and next-generation client platforms. The Firm is targeted on constructing long-term shareholder worth by aligning capital with the transformative applied sciences shaping the way forward for humanity.
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ABOUT BITMINE
Bitmine (NYSE AMERICAN: BMNR) is a Bitcoin miner with operations within the US. The corporate is deploying its extra capital to be the main Ethereum Treasury firm on the earth, implementing an progressive digital asset technique for institutional buyers and public market individuals. Guided by its philosophy of “the alchemy of 5%,” the Firm is dedicated to ETH as its major treasury reserve asset, leveraging native protocol-level actions together with staking and decentralized finance mechanisms. The Firm will launch MAVAN (Made-in America VAlidator Community), a devoted staking infrastructure for Bitmine property, in Q1 of 2026.
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ABOUT BEAST INDUSTRIES
Beast Industries is a multifaceted leisure, client merchandise, and CPG firm based and led by YouTube creator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Jimmy Donaldson, higher referred to as MrBeast. A worldwide leisure powerhouse, MrBeast is the most-subscribed YouTube channel on the earth with over 450 million subscribers and over 5 billion month-to-month views throughout all channels. Acknowledged because the #1 creator on Forbes’ Prime Creators Listing (2023) and featured on the TIME 100 and inaugural TIME100 Local weather lists, Donaldson has constructed Beast Industries right into a platform spanning groundbreaking content material, record-breaking competitors codecs, and a number of the fastest-growing CPG launches in historical past, together with the snack model Feastables. The corporate additionally drives large-scale social influence by way of initiatives like #TeamTrees, #TeamSeas, #TeamWater, and Beast Philanthropy, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has supplied over 20 million free meals and funded essential infrastructure initiatives worldwide. At its core, Beast Industries blends leisure, innovation, and function to create culturally resonant IP, market-leading merchandise, and lasting change.
ABOUT PAYWARD
Payward, Inc. is a unified monetary infrastructure platform that powers a household of merchandise advancing an open, world monetary system. Constructed on a single shared structure, Payward permits prospects to carry, commerce, earn, pay, and make investments throughout asset lessons with out friction or fragmentation.
At its core, Payward supplies the infrastructure layer behind Kraken and a rising set of purpose-built merchandise, together with NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, and CF Benchmarks.
Payward separates infrastructure from product expression. Every product floor is designed for a particular buyer phase, regulatory regime, and use case, whereas working on the identical world basis:
- One world liquidity pool
- One unified danger and margin engine
- One collateral and settlement system
- One compliance and licensing framework
This shared structure permits Payward to scale effectively, launch new merchandise at low marginal value, and serve various world markets whereas sustaining constant danger administration, regulatory integrity, and operational resilience.
For extra details about Payward, please go to www.payward.com.
Ahead-Wanting Statements
This press launch incorporates forward-looking statements throughout the that means of the Non-public Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements on this press launch aside from statements of historic truth might be deemed ahead trying. Phrases reminiscent of “plans,” “expects,” “will,” “anticipates,” “proceed,” “increase,” “advance,” “develop” “believes,” “steerage,” “goal,” “might,” “stay,” “venture,” “outlook,” “intend,” “estimate,” “might,” “ought to,” and different phrases and phrases of comparable that means and expression are meant to establish forward-looking statements, though not all forward-looking statements include such phrases. Ahead-looking statements are based mostly on administration’s present beliefs and assumptions which can be topic to dangers and uncertainties and aren’t ensures of future efficiency. Precise outcomes might differ materially from these contained in any forward-looking assertion on account of varied elements, together with, with out limitation: the Firm’s incapacity to direct the administration or operations of personal companies the place the Firm just isn’t a controlling stockholder; danger of loss or markdown on the Firm’s strategic investments; the Firm’s means to take care of compliance with the Nasdaq’s continued itemizing necessities; sudden prices, expenses or bills that scale back the Firm’s capital assets or in any other case delay capital deployment; incapacity to boost enough capital to fund or scale its enterprise operations or strategic investments; regulatory modifications, future laws and rulemaking negatively impacting digital property or synthetic intelligence adoption; and shifting public and governmental positions on digital property or synthetic intelligence-related industries. Given these dangers and uncertainties, you might be cautioned to not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. For a dialogue of different dangers and uncertainties, and different vital elements, any of which might trigger Eightco’s precise outcomes to vary from these contained within the forward-looking statements herein, see Eightco’s filings with the Securities and Alternate Fee (the “SEC”), together with the chance elements and different disclosures in its Annual Report on Type 10-Ok filed with the SEC on April 15, 2025 and subsequent publicly out there SEC filings. All data on this press launch is as of the date of the discharge, and Eightco undertakes no responsibility to replace this data or to publicly announce the outcomes of any revisions to any of such statements to replicate future occasions or developments, besides as required by legislation.
