Another heavy hitter from Wall Street is diving into the crypto treasury craze. On Wednesday, a group of investors announced that it plans to establish a $671 million company dedicated to stockpiling the cryptocurrency Avalanche. Bart Smith, the former head of the crypto arm of the quantitative trading firm Susquehanna, will be CEO.
Avalanche Treasury Co.’s $671 million valuation comes from about $440 million in capital it raised from investors added to the approximately $230 million with which the acquisition vehicle had already been seeded.
Board members for the new company will include Rob Hadick, general partner at the crypto venture capital firm Dragonfly, and John Nahas, chief business officer at the blockchain developer Ava Labs. The firm’s advisory board will add other partners from Dragonfly, along with some familiar crypto names: Emin Gün Sirer, cofounder of Ava Labs; Stani Kulechov, founder of the decentralized finance protocol Aave; and Jason Yanowitz, cofounder of the crypto media company Blockworks.
To start, the company has bought $200 million in Avalanche tokens at a discount from the Avalanche Foundation, one of the main companies behind the eponymous blockchain. It plans to own more than $1 billion in Avalanche cryptocurrency once Avalanche Treasury Co., whose ticker will be AVAT, combines with its acquisition target in the beginning of next year, according to a press release.
“One thing is very clear is that investors want to get exposure to blockchain technology and its prospects, and to date, they haven’t had a really good way to do it,” said Smith, who left his job at Susquehanna in early September to become CEO of the new crypto treasury company.
Still, Smith, the CEO of the Avalanche Treasury Co., believes his forthcoming public company has an edge: “I feel very confident that we will be able to distinguish ourselves to the market.”
