What the hell: Got 60 billion in cash, but market cap shrank by 7 billion?

Saw something absurd today—a state-owned enterprise giant just announced it’s selling its real estate and mining assets to its parent company for 60.676 billion. Logically, with so much cash suddenly on the books, the stock price should soar, right?

So what happened? The A-shares hit the limit down, and the Hong Kong shares plunged over 20%. Even stranger, the company’s total market cap dropped from over 70 billion to 63 billion. They’re holding 60 billion in real cash with one hand, but somehow 7 billion in market value just vanished with the other.

How does that add up? What exactly is the market worried about?

**First, you might be selling your best assets**
This asset package included a copper-zinc mining business. With metal prices so hot right now, that thing’s basically a money printer. And you sold it? Investors are dumbfounded: what’s left for growth—fresh air?

**Second, you openly admitted the assets have plunged in value**
The core real estate platform’s appraisal showed a 45% impairment rate. That’s like the company standing up and shouting, “This asset is worth less than half of what it used to be!” Announcing this kind of self-inflicted wound absolutely shatters investor confidence in what the company’s got left.

Ironically, another listed company under the same parent group, which is taking over the assets, hit the daily upper limit today. Within the same group, what’s trash for the left hand becomes a treasure for the right. The market is voting with its feet: maybe these assets can tell a sexier story in a different setting.

**The old problems of traditional finance**
If this happened on-chain, every asset transfer and valuation change would be written on the block explorer, and investors would’ve run it through TokenSniffer a hundred times already. But in traditional markets, you’re stuck staring at numbers in an announcement, guessing how much fluff is in that 60 billion and whether that 45% impairment is real or just accounting tricks.

In today’s market—whether crypto or stocks—just piling up cash doesn’t win anyone over. What people want is: What’s your growth story? Where will future profits come from? Does your narrative make sense?

The capital shell game of moving money from the left hand to the right is a trick the audience is sick of seeing.