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Michael Saylor of the North? Canadian Firm NexTech AR Uses $2M of Treasury Funds to Buy Bitcoin

NexTech's Evan Gappelberg is the latest CEO to use company treasury funds to buy bitcoin.

By Tanzeel Akhtar
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 10:49 a.m. Published Dec 29, 2020, 1:40 p.m.
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Canadian augmented reality (AR) company NexTech AR is jumping on the crypto bandwagon with plans to use its treasury funds to buy $2 million of bitcoin for "capital diversification."

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  • Announced Tuesday, the AR company said it plans on making an initial investment of $2 million in bitcoin and may add more in 2021.
  • As of Sept. 30, the company had C$16.39 million (US$12.79 million) cash on hand, making the investment roughly 15.6% of its available cash, assuming the $2 million investment is in U.S. dollars. An email to NexTech seeking clarification wasn't immediately answered.
  • “Our investment in bitcoin is part of our new capital diversification and allocation strategy with the intent to maximize long-term value for our shareholders,” said NexTech CEO Evan Gappelberg in a statement.
  • Gappelberg said the investment reflects his belief that bitcoin is a long-term store of value with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash, which is currently yielding 0.06%.
  • The CEO described bitcoin as a "digital version of gold," which has a total market capitalization of $10 trillion versus bitcoin’s total market capitalization of $500 billion.
  • Gappelberg is the latest CEO to use company treasury funds to buy bitcoin. Most prominent among these is MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) CEO Michael Saylor, who has spent $1.125 billion on bitcoin to date.

Read more: Nasdaq-Listed Canadian Firm to Invest Over $1M in Bitcoin

investmentCanadaBitcoinMichael Saylor

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