Ever since computers have been booting up people have been concerned about information, data privacy, and cyber security in business and at home. Things have gotten even more complicated when economic stakes became higher, technological advancements brought us closer together, and social consequences forced us to see things differently.
What was once an issue around dodging activity trackers online has become so massive that elections, our personal lives, even our very cultural identities hinge on data privacy, but still not everyone can see this.
However, there is one tech Company out there who believes that privacy will become one of the most important narratives in technology ….
One of the top-20 bitcoin holders in the world,
Cypherpunk Holdings Inc. (CSE.HODL, OTCMKTS: KHRIF, Forum) is a Canadian-based holding company, set up to provide equity investments in technologies and cryptocurrencies with strong privacy. This is a digital asset holding vehicle that invests in technologies and cryptocurrencies with a strong, built-in privacy infrastructure.
Cypherpunk Holdings is proving itself to be an essential part of cryptocurrency investing. Bitcoin, along with other cryptos, continue to break new records in value, but the risk of getting hacked, both for the system and its users, is also great. This Company is offering a solution that would marry this field of investing with privacy and security.
The Company also currently holds 360 bitcoin (BTC), estimated at $16 million (USD) in value, and has more than $6 million (CAD) on hand, along with a suite of stable investments as it explores new opportunities to acquire, including IP addresses which has generated further income as they are leased out.
This is one of the leading opportunities to participate in an emerging era for blockchain as it upgrades into a new, much more energy resilient and efficient system, backed by a team that is deeply experienced in the field.
Let’s back up a bit. What does Cypherpunk look for when it decides to invest funds in a business? In a one-on-one interview with Stockhouse Editorial, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, Tony Guoga explained that people always come first.
“We are looking to invest in businesses that are solving real problems and we are trying to stay away from short term hypes. Generating a long-term cash flow is also essential for our business. We want to make sure our investments make money at the end of the day.”
Building the world’s leading privacy investment vehicle is Cypherpunk’s mission and what motivated this endeavour to provide capital to tech companies. The two go hand-in-hand.
(Image via Cypherpunk Holdings.)
The Company currently boasts several large equity investments:
Samourai Wallet - The most secure and privacy-centric bitcoin wallet currently available for mobiles with more than 50,000 users and already profitable. Cypherpunk Holdings is a lead investor and owns 1.4%.
With revenue growth of more than 300%, the business model is based upon in-app premium transactions, of which there were 15,000 such transactions during 2019.
This platform offers ground-breaking tech which includes Open Exploration Tool, Whirlpool, Ricochet and Dojo. It also launched commercial partnership with nodl.it to deliver Samourai-branded hardware.
Wasabi Wallet –the market-leading, desktop privacy wallet for bitcoin, the Wasabi Wallet implements trustless coin shuffling with mathematically provable anonymity (also known as Chaumian CoinJoin).
Cypherpunk Holdings is also lead investor and owns 4.5% of the company.
It is rare for such early-stage tech to be so profitable. Its 2019 revenues were 107 BTC with impressive growth, roughly doubling from the first to second half of the year (70 BTC in H2).
Chia –a ground-breaking approach to building a decentralised blockchain network: proof of space.
Cypherpunk has invested $300,000 (USD) via convertible note into Chia. CEO Guoga pointed to very early revenue likely coming from this outlet.
NGRAVE - a developer of the “coldest wallet”, its flagship product “Zero” is a fully offline hardware wallet that features the world’s highest security certification, EAL7, for its secure operating system.
Cypherpunk has invested initial €100,000 via convertible loan note.
Hydro 66 - (CSE: SIX) - a datacentre, based in Sweden, it provides IT infrastructure, cloud computing, and crypto mining services, as well as running its own crypto mining operations. It has access to low-cost energy and is well-placed to benefit from the Nordic cloud.
Cypherpunk holds 4.4 million shares.
Money in the bank:
In March 2021, Cypherpunk closed a private placement of approximately
$10 million (CAD). Along with general working
capital purposes, the net proceeds of this private placement are expected to be used by the Company to make investments in accordance with its investment strategy, including possible investments in cryptocurrencies and companies, technologies and protocols that enhance or protect privacy often in the blockchain ecosystem.
The Company followed this move up a month later with the purchase of a further
68.16 bitcoins for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $5 million (CAD). The average price per bitcoin was $58,092. As a result of this acquisition, the Company now holds an aggregate of 360 bitcoins, placing it in the top 20 in the Bitcoin Treasury listing alongside the likes of
Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN), MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR), and
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA).
In purchasing this additional bitcoin, the Company intends to continue to maintain cash assets that are sufficient to meet the day-to-day working capital requirements of its business and its investment needs.
This purchase was made under Cypherpunk’s capital allocation and treasury management strategy for the Company's capital that exceeds its working capital, as well as other investment requirements. Under this plan, the Company’s objective is to hold most of its unallocated resources in bitcoin, regarded as its primary treasury reserve asset (being all unallocated cash and bitcoin assets of the Company more than the Company's anticipated near term working capital and other investment capital needs). This is by no means an easy feat and requires a top executive team with the ability to evaluate specialised deals to see it through.
Meet the team:
Cypherpunk Holdings is led by a number of established names in tech, finance, business, and in the case of CEO Guoga (pictured left), politics and poker.
“I’ve always been an investor in businesses, and I'm a shareholder of Cypherpunk Holdings myself. I continue supporting the company and buying shares on the open market with a holding of over 22 million shares,” he said. He also founded the Blockchain Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2018. He is a cable TV star in the USA by winning millions of dollars locking horns at poker with the best players in the world.
“I really believe in this business and a need for this type of Company in the area and I'm putting my money behind it. I feel that my experience in European Parliament & experience of playing poker and winning helps. I was also rated by a political magazine as one of the most influential politicians in Europe for the time that I was there for five years.”
He noted that this gives him access to information and knowledge that other people would not have.
“It is important to have a winning strategy, this comes from my poker playing career. In a way this is also a game but we are using other people’s money and we want to make sure that we perform well at the end of the day. For me this is extremely important, it’s what drives me. Winning this race is what I want to do and I am doing everything I can to make it happen.”
This is why he is out to hire the people that can help achieve these goals. Doing business in privacy and equity financing can be a challenge, but the Company brought a new Chief Financial Officer,
Douglas Harris on board in April 2021, who has taken control of tasks such as accounting procedures, which can often be seen as very exotic for the exchanges.
He is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Business Valuator with more than 20 years of experience in the financial services sector, participating in more than $2 billion of transactions. He also holds an MBA (Accg) from the Rotman School of Management and a BSc. from the University of Guelph. In addition to serving as Chief Financial Officer of the company, he also serves as the Chief Financial Officer of several public and private companies operating in the technology and natural resources sectors.
Moe Adham is Cypherpunk Holdings’ Chief Investment Officer who has been mining bitcoin for the last eight years and began, while completing a Masters in Nanotechnology at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). In 2013, he founded
Bitaccess, which has become one of Canada’s most prominent blockchain technology companies, pioneering products such as Bitcoin ATMs, blockchain publishing, and financial smart contracts.
The Company’s Chief Economist is Jon Matonis, a monetary economist with a particular focus on non-political digital currencies and privacy tech. His career has included senior influential posts at
VISA,
VeriSign,
Sumitomo Bank, and
Hushmail. He was a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation, whose early work on digital cash systems and financial cryptography has been published by Dow Jones and the London School of Economics.
Looking ahead:
Looking out to the coming years, the Company is braced for an exciting future and already pursuing opportunities in the long-term. Cypherpunk is advancing its business into decentralized finance (DeFi), which is form of finance based on blockchain that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks to offer traditional financial instruments. The team is also pursuing non-fungible token (NFT) privacy in IP addresses, as well as having its treasury in bitcoin.
“I am thinking about years and not days or months. We want to be a very successful and important company in the area to give people exposure to this industry in an efficient way and importantly, very reliable way.”
Investment summary:
Still a young Company at its heart, Cypherpunk Holdings enables people to invest in bitcoin and emerging privacy technology plays with a unique strategy and unique opportunity. This is a “ground floor” opportunity in an emerging segment of the tech and cryptocurrency market via a solid first-mover advantage. Privacy is undervalued and the sector is destined to grow.
To find out more about the Company, visit
cypherpunkholdings.com.