Gold Explorer Dives Headfirst Into Bitcoin Treasury Trend—Is This the New Gold Rush?
Another traditional asset player caves to crypto's siren song.
From Pickaxes to Private Keys
The gold exploration sector—once the poster child of old-school safe havens—just stamped its passport to the digital frontier. Another company joins MicroStrategy’s growing army of corporate Bitcoin converts, swapping geological surveys for on-chain analytics.
Wall Street’s Worst-Kept Secret
With fiat currencies inflating faster than a balloon at a central banker’s birthday party, even commodity veterans are hedging with Satoshi’s invention. The move screams louder than any earnings call: store-of-value narratives aren’t just for crypto bros anymore.
The Cynical Take
Let’s be real—this ‘diversification’ smells suspiciously like a CFO chasing the hype cycle. But when your industry’s been irrelevant since the California Gold Rush, maybe any publicity is good publicity.
Same playbook, different players
Bitcoin treasury pivots have become increasingly familiar strategies, particularly among companies seeking to reinvent themselves.
Michael Saylor's Strategy shifted to bitcoin in 2020 after years of stagnant performance. Semler Scientific, a healthcare company, faced declining revenue and legal issues before adopting its Bitcoin strategy last year. It now aims to acquire 105,000 BTC by 2027.
Others, such as GameStop, tuned into the trend amid pressure from retail headwinds and activist investors, with its board approving Bitcoin purchases earlier in March. It has since acquired over 4,710 BTC and raised $450 million last month, potentially securing more.
More recent moves include those by Opyl, an Australian biotech firm with less than a month's runway in cash, and Vanadi Coffee, a Spanish café chain with just six locations, appear to be working from the same playbook: pivot to Bitcoin, reset the narrative.
Structure and discipline
Still, not all Bitcoin treasury strategies are built alike.
The difference, according to Saul Rejwan, managing partner at early-stage crypto venture capital firm Masterkey, comes down to structure and discipline.
Citing Tokyo-listed Metaplanet, Rejwan told Decrypt that the firm “first refinanced high-coupon hotel debt and bought back older secured bonds,” later issuing zero-coupon paper to add 1,005 more Bitcoin.
But because Metaplanet's operating engine can already cover its liabilities, the Bitcoin position “complements a cleaner balance sheet instead of substituting for one," Rejwan explained, highlighting how a Bitcoin treasury model could serve as a kind of "litmus test" for businesses.
Rejwan contrasted that with firms like Twenty One Capital, which he characterized as a "SPAC-born" vehicle. Twenty One Capital had announced earlier in April that it plans a public debut already carrying 42,000 BTC on its treasury, which Rejwan noted is "funded largely by fresh equity and convertible debt" from backers such as SoftBank and Tether.
"Here, the share count balloons before a single satoshi is earned; Bitcoin volatility is expected to do the heavy lifting for the stock price, not to protect retained earnings," Rejwan said, comparing the big players to the newer entrants.
"The dividing line is risk discipline," he argued. While a bullish market may tend to "flatter" such reserve strategies, history could prove otherwise, he claimed.
Firms that "rely on serial equity raises, oversized positions or one-signer wallets" are ostensibly "levering shareholders to a four-year boom-and-bust cycle," Rejwan noted.
