Gold Explorer Joins Bitcoin Treasury Bandwagon

Hamak Gold, an early-stage mineral exploration firm centered on discovering orogenic and greenstone-hosted gold deposits in Liberia, West Africa, is shifting a part of its treasury into Bitcoin.

Listed on the London Inventory Alternate since 2022, the corporate introduced Thursday that it had raised £2.47 million via a share placement, although it didn’t specify when the funds had been secured.



The “injection of latest capital” makes Hamak Gold “well-positioned to pursue two core targets in parallel,” Nick Thurlow, its newly-appointed chairman, mentioned in an announcement printed by the London Inventory Alternate.

These targets embrace “maximising [our] current gold exploration and growth alternatives” and “seizing the transformative alternative […] to steer the UK in bitcoin treasury administration,” Thurlow mentioned.

Whereas it stays pre-revenue and has no energetic mining operations, Hamak Gold holds licenses throughout greater than 1,700 sq. kilometers of potential terrain.

Similar playbook, totally different gamers

Bitcoin treasury pivots have turn into more and more acquainted methods, notably amongst firms searching for to reinvent themselves.

Michael Saylor’s Technique shifted to Bitcoin in 2020 after years of stagnant efficiency. Semler Scientific, a healthcare firm, confronted declining income and authorized points earlier than adopting its Bitcoin technique final yr. It now goals to amass 105,000 BTC by 2027.

Others, similar to GameStop, tuned into the development amid strain from retail headwinds and activist traders, with its board approving Bitcoin purchases earlier in March. It has since acquired over 4,710 BTC and raised $450 million final month, doubtlessly securing extra.

Newer strikes embrace these by Opyl, an Australian biotech agency with lower than a month’s runway in money, and Vanadi Espresso, a Spanish café chain with simply six areas, seem like working from the identical playbook: pivot to Bitcoin, reset the narrative.

Construction and self-discipline

Nonetheless, not all Bitcoin treasury methods are constructed alike.

The distinction, in keeping with Saul Rejwan, managing accomplice at early-stage crypto enterprise capital agency Masterkey, comes right down to construction and self-discipline.

Citing Tokyo-listed Metaplanet, Rejwan instructed Decrypt that the agency “first refinanced high-coupon lodge debt and acquired again older secured bonds,” later issuing zero-coupon paper so as to add 1,005 extra Bitcoin.

However as a result of Metaplanet’s working engine can already cowl its liabilities, the Bitcoin place “enhances a cleaner stability sheet as a substitute of substituting for one,” Rejwan defined, highlighting how a Bitcoin treasury mannequin may function a type of “litmus check” for companies.

Rejwan contrasted that with companies like Twenty One Capital, which he characterised as a “SPAC-born” automobile. Twenty One Capital had introduced earlier in April that it plans a public debut already carrying 42,000 BTC on its treasury, which Rejwan famous is “funded largely by contemporary fairness and convertible debt” from backers similar to SoftBank and Tether.

“Right here, the share depend balloons earlier than a single satoshi is earned; Bitcoin volatility is predicted to do the heavy lifting for the inventory worth, to not shield retained earnings,” Rejwan mentioned, evaluating the massive gamers to the newer entrants.

“The dividing line is threat self-discipline,” he argued. Whereas a bullish market could are inclined to “flatter” such reserve methods, historical past may show in any other case, he claimed.

Corporations that “depend on serial fairness raises, outsized positions or one-signer wallets” are ostensibly “levering shareholders to a four-year boom-and-bust cycle,” Rejwan famous.