Crypto's hottest new trend: publicly traded companies buying bunches of bitcoin

President Donald Trump's media company just announced a plan to raise $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin, joining a growing number of so-called "bitcoin treasury companies" as the world's most popular cryptocurrency hits all-time highs.

The companies buy bitcoin for different reasons: Some hold it as a hedge against inflation or to signal support for the cryptocurrency industry, while some firms have made using debt and stock sales to buy bitcoin their primary business strategy.

"The world at large has no idea what's happening and they're in for a big shock," Dylan LeClair, an executive at the Japan-based Metaplanet, which recently went from being a budget hotel firm to a bitcoin treasury company, said at a recent crypto conference. "This is a one-way train, nothing is going to stop this."$BTC