Riot pads Bitcoin trove with $500m note sale

Bitcoin infrastructure company Riot Platforms has proposed issuing debt securities to fund BTC purchases and “general corporate purposes.”

Riot Platforms announced plans to offer $500 million of convertible senior notes through a private offering to accredited institutional buyers. Investors will also have the option to purchase an additional $75 million within three days of the initial investment.

Convertible bonds are debt instruments that assign equity rights to buyers and allow for the option of converting the bonds into ownership units in a publicly traded corporation.

“Riot plans to use the net proceeds from this offering to acquire additional Bitcoin,” the crypto mining startup’s (BTC) press release dated December 9 stated.

Notes on Bitcoin trend

Colorado-based Riot has joined a growing group of companies financing Bitcoin purchases by offering shares. Fellow BTC miner Marathon Digital Holdings increased its note sale on December 3 to $850 million with an additional $150 million option, bringing its total BTC herd to over $3.3 billion.

Japanese investment giant Metaplanet holds over $45 million worth of Bitcoin, and most of this amount is financed by selling shares for capital.

The National Center for Public Policy Research, a global think tank, has called on Jeff Bezos’ Amazon to include Bitcoin in its corporate reserves. Binance founder Changpeng ‘Cz’ Zhao supported this idea and stated that Amazon should also add BTC as a payment option.

Firms such as SOS Limited and Genius Group in China have also adopted the concept of securities debt capital raising promoted by MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor.

Shifting from crypto skeptic to Bitcoin advocate, Saylor suggested that BTC will capture a larger share of global cash reserves in the coming years. MicroStrategy’s chief executive and other BTC supporters also pressured US officials to create a strategic national Bitcoin reserve.

Experts have predicted that an open race for the dwindling supply of BTC has already begun between countries, especially since the US elections signaled a regime change under pro-Bitcoin President-elect Donald Trump.