Bit Digital Inc (NASDAQ:BTBT) earlier this week outlined plans to transform its business by shifting away from Bitcoin mining to focus on Ethereum. The company said it had sold 280 Bitcoin and combined those proceeds with cash to acquire more than 100,000 Ethereum.
CEO Sam Tabar told Proactive that the strategy draws inspiration from Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin playbook.
Proactive: The company has some really interesting news about where it’s going in the future. We’ll talk about that in just a second. But for those not familiar with Bit Digital, just remind everyone a little bit about what you do.
Sam Tabar: Bit Digital was a Bitcoin miner. We also have a digital infrastructure business that is very successful, and there is an S-1 filed confidentially with the SEC on that. But mostly we were a Bitcoin miner, and we have converted our Bitcoin, and we are exiting the Bitcoin mining business into a far more lucrative and promising path. And that is becoming the preeminent Ethereum Treasury public vehicle.
Let’s talk about why that shift to using Ethereum instead of Bitcoin.
We think Ethereum has a lot of uses that Bitcoin doesn’t. But just taking a step back, we have to look at what Michael Saylor did. His playbook was excellent, and I’m shamelessly copying that playbook. Michael Saylor has an excellent playbook on what he did with respect to Bitcoin and his company. And we have been preparing for a couple of years to be in this position today in order to replicate that playbook.
So why Ethereum? Ethereum is the most widely used blockchain in the world, even when it comes to settlements for stablecoins, tokenized assets, or global payments. And what’s a tokenized asset? A tokenized asset is basically a real-world asset that has been digitally represented on a blockchain using a crypto token. You can take that token and trade it on an exchange. That can’t be done with Bitcoin. We think that’s a very promising blockchain. It is the second largest blockchain after Bitcoin. And there is really no one that is a capital markets proxy like we feel we can be, with respect to being a proxy for investors looking at Ethereum and understanding its value.
I know that you had about 280 Bitcoin that you’ve recently sold. And moving over to Ethereum, you also had some cash influence as well. So you’ve been able to get a pretty strong balance sheet when it comes to owning Ethereum. Can you talk a bit about that because you were able to buy a lot of it right away?
We have absolutely no debt on our balance sheet. That was by design. We sold all our Bitcoin and we used some fiat as well as some cash on our balance sheet. We now have just over 100,000 Ethereum on our balance sheet, making us one of the largest Ethereum capital markets proxies in the world. We intend to be the preeminent one in the world, and we will have that happen in short order. I will be very aggressive in making sure that happens.
Talk to us about what the plan is moving forward for the next 3 to 6 months. What should people be looking for from the company? Is it just trying to acquire as much Ethereum as you possibly can?
Absolutely. That is it. And we stake it. It’s not just sitting on our balance sheet. We stake it, so there is a compound yield that occurs. We stake our entire Ethereum. Unlike ETFs—there are Ethereum ETFs out there—they are unable to stake the Ethereum by law. We can stake our own Ethereum. So when people look at our ticker, they can get exposure to the staking economics as well.
Quotes have been lightly edited for style and clarity