All these companies royally screwed their non-PIPE investors. The whole thing was a pure handout to the fiat participants.

Imagine: PIPE Investors buy in at 1:1 NAV with 30-day restrictions (that is no restrictions beyond normal new listings). Those who actually put up Bitcoin that add directly to the Treasury, come in at 2:1 (in the case of ASST). The stock is then issued at >2 NAV which new investors gobble up.

Its no surprise that the fiat participants are just going to instantly dump at any level >1 NAV. Literal free money.

How can anyone trust management when they put that deal together and promoted it?

In the case of ASST its even more dubious: ASST (Asset Entities) was a social media marketing firm. Strive comes along and offers them a 21% premium to buy all their stock and convert them into a bitcoin treasury company. The existing shareholders of ASST were themselves under no restrictions not to mention they were a social media company, so they heavily promoted the deal on social media.

So you had existing ASST shareholders and PIPE participants both dumping.