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

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.”

• 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