Eightco Bets Big: $125M Buyback Fuels AI-Resistant Identity Quest

NEW YORK, NY – December 29, 2025 – Eightco Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: ORBS) sent a powerful signal to Wall Street today, announcing a share buyback program of up to $125 million. The news ignited a rally, with the company's stock surging over 30% in trading. The move, according to management, reflects profound confidence in the company's future and what it deems an “attractive valuation.”

This is not a typical corporate buyback. Eightco stands at a unique and volatile crossroads, blending ambitious technology development with a massive, high-stakes bet on cryptocurrency. The company’s stated mission is to build the essential authentication and trust layer for a world increasingly dominated by Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The buyback, therefore, is more than a financial maneuver; it's a doubling down on a vision to secure human identity in the digital age, a vision underpinned by its flagship product, Infinity by ORBS, and a colossal treasury of Worldcoin tokens.

A Vote of Confidence Amid Financial Headwinds

The $125 million share repurchase authorization is substantial, representing a significant portion of Eightco's market capitalization, which stood at approximately $329 million at the start of the day. The company's board and management, led by Chairman Dan Ives and CEO Kevin O'Donnell, framed the decision as a strategic investment in their own stock, intended to create long-term shareholder value.

However, this bold declaration of confidence stands in stark contrast to the company's challenging financial landscape. While Eightco has posted impressive three-year revenue growth of over 100%, its bottom line tells a different story. Recent filings reveal a net income loss of over $32 million and a negative free cash flow of more than $300 million. Profitability margins remain deeply in the red, and the company has heavily relied on issuing common stock to finance its operations, a practice that can dilute existing shareholder value.

This financial performance has drawn caution from market observers. Despite the stock's recent surge, some analyst tools rate ORBS as an “Underperform,” citing the weak financial indicators and a high price-to-sales ratio of 7.6x, well above the industry median. The company's claim of an “attractive valuation” is thus a matter of perspective: one that looks past current losses toward the potential of a future market it aims to create.

Building the 'Trust Layer' for a Post-AGI World

At the heart of Eightco’s ambitious valuation is its technology. The company is positioning itself as a critical player in solving one of the most complex challenges of the AI era: proving who is human online. As AI-generated deepfakes, sophisticated bots, and Sybil attacks become more prevalent, the need for robust, AI-resistant authentication has become paramount.

Eightco’s answer is Infinity by ORBS, an application platform designed to provide secure, single sign-on (SSO) authentication that verifies “humanness” across distributed systems. The technology aims to be the foundational “Proof of Human” (PoH) protocol for enterprises, ensuring that digital interactions are conducted by real people, not malicious AI. This is what Chairman Dan Ives refers to as the “missing trust layer in enterprise AI.”

To validate its technology, Eightco has initiated pilot programs with major players in the digital asset space. Cryptocurrency exchanges Kraken and Coinbase have both joined the INFINITY pilot, seeking to leverage the platform to strengthen human verification and streamline workflows for financial services and digital asset treasuries. These partnerships lend significant credibility to Eightco’s solution and signal strong interest from the industries most immediately threatened by AI-driven fraud. While the initial focus is on finance, the company has its sights set on expanding into gaming, e-commerce, healthcare, and energy, betting that PoH will become a fundamental requirement across the global digital economy.

The Worldcoin Strategy: Synergy or Speculation?

Perhaps the most audacious element of Eightco’s strategy is its deep integration with the cryptocurrency Worldcoin (WLD). The company has adopted a “first-of-its-kind Worldcoin token treasury strategy,” accumulating a position that represents over 10% of the token's entire circulating supply. Its stated goal is to eventually hold 800 million WLD tokens.

This is far more than a simple investment. Eightco envisions its Worldcoin treasury as a core component of its technology infrastructure. Worldcoin’s own mission is to establish a global, privacy-preserving digital identity network, and Eightco plans to leverage this ecosystem to bolster its authentication services. Chairman Dan Ives has made bold projections about this synergy, suggesting that if the company achieves its 800-million-token target and WLD reaches a valuation of $10 per token, it could represent an $8 billion potential valuation for Eightco itself.

This crypto-centric approach, however, is fraught with risk. The digital asset market is notoriously volatile, and the value of Eightco’s massive treasury could fluctuate dramatically. Furthermore, Worldcoin itself faces challenges, including regulatory scrutiny and concerns about the long-term dilution of its token supply. By tying its fate so closely to WLD, Eightco is embracing both the explosive potential and the inherent instability of the cryptocurrency world.

Despite the financial precariousness and the speculative nature of its crypto strategy, Eightco has attracted a roster of high-profile strategic and institutional investors. Backers include prominent names from both traditional finance and the crypto space, such as Wedbush, Pantera, Brevan Howard, Coinfund, BitMine, and World Foundation. This support from sophisticated investors suggests that, for some, the potential reward of establishing a foundational technology for the AI era outweighs the considerable risks. The buyback serves as an exclamation point on this high-stakes narrative, a clear message that the company is all-in on its quest to authenticate humanity for the digital future.