A Korean entertainment firm’s stock soared 143% on Wednesday, shortly after it vowed to allocate a good chunk of its new $500 million raise toward building a Bitcoin treasury—a corporate strategy that’s become increasingly popular among public companies as the price has risen in recent months. K Wave Media, which is listed on the NASDAQ, recently entered into an agreement to sell up to $500 million worth of its common stock to Bitcoin Strategic Reserve KMW, with the aim of reinvesting the proceeds into Bitcoin, the company said Wednesday in a statement. “A significant portion” of that $500 million will go toward purchasing Bitcoin, in addition to funding long-term holding and yield-optimizing strategies for the token, according to a K Wave Media representative.  The firm also plans to allocate some funds to operating Bitcoin Lightning Network nodes and investing in Bitcoin-native infrastructure, according to its statement.  “Bitcoin offers not just a store of value, but a foundation for innovation, independence, and global scalability,” K Wave Media Co-Interim CEO Ted Kim said Wednesday in the statement. “By embedding BTC into our core strategy, we’re reinforcing our commitment to decentralization, agility, and future-facing value creation.”   K Wave Media did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for clarity on its process for determining the size of its Bitcoin treasury investment and how the funds would be divided among its various crypto-focused initiatives.  K Wave Media shares were recently trading at $4.67 on Wednesday Eastern Time, although the stock is down 61% year-to-date, according to Yahoo Finance data. The Korean firm's corporate strategy shift comes as a growing number of companies imitate software firm Strategy's Bitcoin-focused playbook.  A full 223 entities, which includes public and private companies, funds, and government actors, have established Bitcoin treasuries as of publication time, up roughly 9% in the past 30 days, according to data from Bitcointreasuries.net.  Investors’ increased interest in Bitcoin has coincided with an upswing in the crypto market, with the world’s oldest cryptocurrency hitting an all-time-high price of a little more than $112,000 on May 22, CoinGecko data shows.  However, the number of private and public companies investing in Bitcoin is still dwarfed by the number of firms that have shunned the digital asset. There are fewer than 4,000 public companies and 25 million private companies in the U.S. alone, according to data from the Cato Institute.  K Wave Media will reserve a part of its $500 million sale proceeds for K Wave Media’s working capital and merger-and-acquisition activities, with the aim of further expanding the firm’s content and K-pop related businesses.  However, the media firm is exploring blockchain integrations with its content and K-pop merchandising, underscoring its interest in increasing consumers' exposure to the Web3 world. Edited by James Rubin