CRTD to CRTDD

Vocal's parent company Creatd Inc. has quietly reversed-split its stock today at the 1-to-20 ratio. As of now, at 1:30 pm, it trades as CRTDD (extra D for the temporary status of restructuring or reorganization) at $4.00 per share, i.e. already $6.94 less than the reversed-split value of $10.94.

This was long coming. For most of 2025, the stock was trading at below 50 cents per share and was risking to be devalued further. Few investors want to buy penny stock, so something had to be done. Dharrsheena, if you are reading this, this might explain why the Vocal leadership was quiet recently; they probably were working on restructuring.

This is the second reverse-split operation the parent company undertook in a little over two years. If you invested in the company, you might remember a brief change of its stock exchange ticker from CRTD to VOCL on April 3, 2023, that was done to highlight Creatd's commitment to its flagship Vocal platform.

In less than a year, a reverse-split was done at the 1-t0-500 ratio and after the 20-day mandatory temporary period of trading as VOCLD, the ticker was reverted to the original CRTD on Feb.24, 2024. Shortly before that, on Feb.13, 2024 the company started to trade on Upstream, a digital securities trading app, while maintaining its OTC/Nasdaq presence.

Creatd's CEO Jeremy Frommer published a long article on Vocal during that transition, which was full of optimism and reassurances for Vocal members, both paying and non-paying:

As the comments on that story show, the feedback was largely positive and supportive. However, it didn't seem to produce expected results as the stock was still trading low.

Today, to meet the national exchange listing requirements, Creatd implemented a 1:20 reverse stock split again. During a 20-day interim period ending March 24, 2026, it will trade under the temporary symbol CRTDD before reverting to CRTD. I'm glad it's not CRTDQ as Q is a temporary status usually assigned to companies going through bankruptcy and dissolution.

So CRTD (and Vocal by association) is still fighting for its life, which is admirable. I hope the company leadership figures out how to make it more attractive to investors and new partners. It's always a great challenge for small companies to stay profitable on big exchanges. I understand SEC's FTDs and shorting are still a major problem for the company, and if you want to understand what it is and how it affects the company, here's a July 2024 white paper by Jeremy Frommer:

I am a very small investor in CRTD. I joined Vocal in June 2021, first as a non-paying member. I liked the platform so much that in November of the same year I bought my annual subscription, became a Vocal+ member and never looked back.

I was not involved on the platform when CRTD started to trade stock publicly in September 2020 at the height of the pandemic, even though I already heard of it as a competitor to the well-established Medium. I consider myself an early adopter, but I still take some time to plunge and fully commit to new ventures. Once I do, I stay loyal until betrayed or bitterly disappointed.

I liked Vocal so much that in July 2021 I invested my first $100 into its stock. When its value started to go down, I held and didn't sell. When the first reverse split happened, I invested $50 more. I also participated in the crowd-funded round by investing $100 (remember that? whatever happened to that initiative?).

After today's reverse split, I am sitting with one share of CRTDD and $147 in potential losses. I will of course not sell this share and will watch its movement. I may even put my trust into the company again and buy more shares. That's how much I believe in Vocal's value for myself.

What frustrates me, however, is that this major change has been not communicated. Had I not been a small investor who looks at her portfolio every day, I would have had no idea of such a major change. I wonder how many Vocal members, subscribing or not, know about it. Even Creatd website had nothing on this new development, with its Latest News last updated in November 2025. I hope this will be corrected soon.