On July 19, the American pharmaceutical company MEI Pharma (stock code: MEIP) announced a strategic transformation, promoting its establishment of a dedicated Litecoin treasury strategy. Currently, over $100 million in funding commitments have been made for this project.
As part of the deal, the biotech company will appoint Litecoin founder Charlie Lee to its board of directors. GSR will also receive a board seat and play a significant role in the company's digital asset and fund management advisory committee. Additionally, the Litecoin Foundation has also invested in MEI Pharma, as the company's treasury strategy aligns closely with the Litecoin Foundation's core mission of promoting global Litecoin adoption.
After the announcement, MEIP's stock price soared 83.37% in pre-market trading on Friday, continuing a previous day's increase of 16.58%, peaking at $9 before stabilizing at $6.30. The trading volume that day exceeded 13 million shares, far surpassing the average daily volume of 26,000 shares over the past three months. This change not only reflects the market's positive expectations for the company's blockchain transformation but also marks the official launch of another "micro-strategy" model following mainstream crypto assets like ETH, SOL, and BNB, ushering in a new chapter for institutional allocation in Litecoin (LTC).
MEI Pharma completes strategic transformation: the first publicly traded company to establish a Litecoin strategic reserve.
MEI Pharma, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the research and development of small molecule drug compounds, with core R&D projects including CDK inhibitor Voruciclib for treating B-cell malignancies and the mitochondrial-targeted anti-cancer drug ME-344. The company was founded on December 1, 2000, and is headquartered in San Diego, California, USA.
On July 19, 2025, MEI Pharma announced its integration with blockchain finance, launching a new round of private equity investment (PIPE) transactions and planning to incorporate Litecoin (LTC) into its corporate asset allocation, becoming the first publicly traded biotech company to use LTC as a primary financial reserve asset.
According to the announcement, this round of financing is co-led by Titan Partners Group and cryptocurrency trading company GSR, planning to issue 29,239,767 shares of common stock or equivalent prepaid warrants at a price of $3.42 per share, with a total financing scale of approximately $100 million. The transaction is expected to be completed around July 22, 2025, subject to customary regulatory and closing conditions.
Behind this financing is not only a capital operation but also a sign that MEI is undergoing a deep strategic transformation. The company stated that it had previously conducted a systematic assessment of the sustainability of traditional biotech business models and decided to embrace the blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi) fields, planning to restructure its corporate treasury with Litecoin as the core asset and to engage in long-term cooperation with the Litecoin Foundation and GSR.
In response to this partnership, Charlie Lee stated: "Since its founding in 2011, Litecoin has adhered to the principles of speed, security, and decentralization. I am pleased to see a publicly traded company like MEI embracing these principles. This not only reflects the increasing confidence of institutions in LTC but also lays the groundwork for its further expansion in traditional capital markets."
Why choose Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC) is one of the earliest altcoins to enter the market, created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee in 2011. Its core architecture is based on Bitcoin's open-source code, with several optimizations and upgrades made on that basis. Compared to Bitcoin, Litecoin generates blocks faster, uses the Scrypt proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, and is more suitable for ordinary hardware mining, lowering barriers to participation. Its total supply is set at 84 million coins, possessing deflationary properties similar to Bitcoin—every 840,000 blocks will trigger a block reward halving mechanism.
As a representative of the first generation of altcoins, Litecoin has always been committed to improving on-chain transaction efficiency and scalability, with advantages such as low transaction fees and fast processing speeds. In recent years, Litecoin has also gradually expanded its payment use cases, including travel companies, convenience stores, real estate agencies, and online e-commerce. In 2021, the Litecoin Foundation announced a partnership with a financial service provider to issue Visa debit cards, allowing users to instantly convert LTC to USD for consumer payments, further solidifying its utility.
Since the establishment of Litecoin in 2011, Charlie Lee has always been the core driving force behind this ecosystem. He has advocated for technological innovation and has led several key upgrade processes, including Litecoin's selective integration of privacy features and the activation of Segregated Witness. Charlie Lee has also made significant contributions to the promotion of lightning network experiments, mining pool collaboration, and developer community building, laying a solid foundation for the long-term development of the Bitcoin and Litecoin networks.
Now, his deep involvement in MEI Pharma's Litecoin treasury has once again boosted market confidence in the "Litecoin treasury" strategy. As the Litecoin Foundation emphasized in the announcement: "For 14 years, Litecoin has consistently provided millions of users with a stable, low-cost, and easily accessible network." This collaboration with MEI not only means Litecoin is being incorporated into the financial structure of a U.S. publicly traded company for the first time but also marks a strategically significant institutional-level financial experiment involving the direct participation of its founder.
Meanwhile, market expectations for Litecoin among institutions are rapidly heating up. According to data from the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket, as of the end of 2025, the probability of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving a spot ETF for Litecoin has reached as high as 86%. This not only reflects investors' optimistic expectations for Litecoin's regulatory prospects but also indicates its trend of gradually entering the ranks of "mainstream assets" amid the wave of compliance.
Once the spot ETF is approved, Litecoin will join Bitcoin and Ethereum as core targets in traditional financial investment portfolios, providing a legitimate and compliant allocation path for institutional funds. This will enhance LTC's market liquidity and valuation anchoring ability while further strengthening its positioning as a "payment digital asset," becoming a bridge between the on-chain world and Wall Street funds.
Summary
With MEI Pharma becoming the first publicly traded company to incorporate LTC into its financial reserves, following the "micro-strategy model" initiated by mainstream tokens such as Ethereum, BNB, and SOL, Litecoin has officially joined this institutional accumulation camp, marking the launch of another "treasury path" for altcoins. On the day of the announcement, Litecoin broke through a downward channel and rose over 6% within 24 hours, with prices peaking at $106 and then continuing to rise to $115. This not only signifies the reassessment of LTC's asset attributes but also further reinforces the role of "altcoin micro-strategy" as a driver of funds in this bull market. Coupled with the ETF concept and accelerated institutional accumulation, the altcoin season is quietly beginning.
