Zhibao Know-how, a Shanghai-based insurance-technology agency listed on the Nasdaq, said Wednesday it has signed a non-binding time period sheet for a inventory sale that may be paid for in bitcoin — some 3,500 cash, value close to $220 million at present costs.
The deal, a non-public funding in public fairness often known as a PIPE, would have a purchaser named Joyertech and Data OPC subscribe for Zhibao shares with consideration the corporate expects to incorporate about 3,500 BTC.
The determine stays topic to closing valuation, custody preparations, an audit, regulatory overview, and definitive agreements. Zhibao burdened that the time period sheet binds nobody, and that the transaction might change or fall by.
The construction hints at a well-known transfer. Zhibao (NASDAQ: ZBAO), which pioneered a “2B2C” embedded-insurance mannequin in China and launched the nation’s first digital insurance coverage brokerage platform in 2020, would hold operating its present enterprise at first.
But the client would identify a majority of the board at closing, a management transition that may hand the newcomers the steering wheel whereas the present crew minds the legacy operation till a later “separation, disposition, or different restructuring.”
$220 million in bitcoin has a brand new proprietor
In plain phrases, a modest insurance-tech firm would change into a house for a big pile of bitcoin, with new house owners in cost. Slightly than elevate money and purchase cash in the marketplace, Zhibao would take the bitcoin itself as fee, a swap that seats a treasury on its stability sheet from day one.
It’s the sort of reinvention that has swept public markets over two years, as companies remake themselves around a bitcoin treasury and corporate holdings climb to records. Zhibao’s inventory jumped close to 24% on the information.
Behind ZBAO are staff, insurance coverage purchasers, and a founding crew that constructed one thing new in a crowded market, and the time period sheet would fold that story right into a treasury automobile formed by individuals who might worth the shell as a lot because the enterprise.
For the present workers, the promise is continuity “till the separation” — phrases that carry their very own uncertainty.
The wager holds warning indicators. Analysts have referred to as the treasury growth a bubble, and a few treasury companies have started selling their coins underneath market stress this 12 months.
