Scaramucci-Backed Crypto Treasury Company Launches With $550 Million Fundraising Plan — WSJ
By Vicky Ge HuangAnthony Scaramucci and crypto investment firm Hivemind Capital are investing in a new company that intends to buy digital tokens issued on the Avalanche blockchain, the first of its kind.The detailsAgriFORCE Growing Systems, a tiny agriculture-tech company that switched gears to become a bitcoin miner, said Monday it plans to raise about $550 million from outside investors to acquire AVAX tokens.Scaramucci, the adviser-turned-antagonist to President Trump and founder of SkyBridge Capital, is among the new investors and will lead AgriFORCE's advisory board. He will help with capital raising and marketing.Hivemind Capital, led by former Citigroup executive Matt Zhang, said it has invested "meaningful capital" in the company. Zhang is expected to become chairman of the company's board.Hivemind, Scaramucci and other investors will become the majority shareholders of the company. It will be renamed AVAX One.As of Friday, AgriFORCE had a market capitalization of just $3.2 million.Launched in 2020, the Avalanche blockchain is a high-speed network used by various Wall Street banks and asset managers. The AVAX token has a market cap of about $14 billion.AVAX One aims to own more than $700 million in AVAX tokens and tokenize, or represent traditional assets to be traded, on the Avalanche blockchain. Over the long term, it plans to acquire fintech and insurance companies and move them to the Avalanche network. SkyBridge, which first invested in AVAX tokens in February 2024, has tokenized $300 million of its flagship hedge funds on the Avalanche blockchain."I believe all assets will eventually be tokenized, and Avalanche is positioned as a go-to chain for tokenization of all types of real-world assets," Scaramucci said in an email.The contextThe rush to bet on tokenization follows Trump's signing of the Genius Act, which establishes a regulatory framework for tokenized dollars known as stablecoins. The landmark measure has unleashed a wave of efforts to put everything from individual stocks to funds and real assets on a digital ledger."For the first time ever, we have a very supportive regulatory environment for us to really try to achieve the full potential of this technology," Zhang said in an interview. "We have to dream big."The president's public embrace of crypto has created an environment of optimism and reduced regulatory burdens for crypto treasury companies. Last month, Trump's media business launched a new company to buy and hold CRO, a niche token affiliated with Crypto.com. Earlier this year, Trump Media & Technology Group raised more than $2 billion from investors to buy bitcoin.The big pictureInvestors' enthusiasm for so-called crypto treasury companies has waned. Some 25% of all bitcoin treasury stocks are trading below the total value of the tokens they hold, according to K33 Research. And shares of some companies have fallen sharply from their peaks, with fast-money traders unloading their shares after scoring quick gains.These companies are following the same approach pioneered by Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy. The playbook is to raise capital by issuing new shares or debt, and use the cash to stockpile bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Aiming for a faster route to the public markets, some crypto firms hoping to accumulate tokens are opting to merge with small, often struggling, publicly traded companies or special-purpose acquisition companies.Write to Vicky Ge Huang at [email protected]