North American asset management company Viridi Funds announced the launch of Viridi Cleaner Energy Crypto-Mining & Semiconductor ETF, code-named RIGZ. According to foreign media reports, this is the first clean energy mining fund product in the United States.
The fund, which will focus on crypto mining companies and semiconductor companies transitioning to clean energy, is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)'s Arca platform.
ETF is a traded open-end index fund, also known as an exchange-traded fund, which is a publicly traded open-end fund with variable fund shares. How to solve the cash flow in the bear market has become an urgent problem for many mining companies, and using traditional financial funds to revitalize the business may be one of the solutions.
Most of Viridi Funds executives have mining experience. CEO Wes Fulford once worked for Bitfarms, and CFO Ethan Vera is from North American mining company Luxor.
Eighty percent of the NYSE ETF will invest in listed cryptocurrency mining companies that have switched to nuclear or sustainable energy or are preparing to use carbon credits to reduce carbon emissions. As the name suggests, clean energy is the fund's investment theme.
Wes Fulford, chief executive of the company, emphasized that even if many people think that reducing emissions is only a temporary move, "if mining companies are smart, they should continue to switch to sustainable energy."
Since there are currently less than 50 listed mining companies with large net worth in the world, there are not many green mining companies to choose from. Another 20% of the fund will invest in semiconductor companies, one of the key links in the supply chain of the mining industry. Even when investing in semiconductor companies, RIGZ also prefers clean energy semiconductor companies.
According to the data on the official website, the fund’s main holdings include mining companies Bitfarm, Marathon Digital Holdings and Hut 8 Mining, as well as semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics, Nvidia, and AMD. Among them, Marathon, Bitfarms and Hut 8 have the largest share, accounting for 30% of the total.
The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has evaporated by more than half from the trillion-dollar peak in the first half of the year, while the rise of mainstream currencies such as Bitcoin is not satisfactory compared with previous performances.
According to statistics from Juan Technology, in the first half of 2021, the rise of several listed stocks in the cryptocurrency mining industry even outperformed the rise of Bitcoin itself. Of course, as the bull market faded, the prices of these stocks, like the price of Bitcoin, also fell sharply.
And if you want to use traditional financial products to expand your mining business in a bear market, green mining companies obviously have an advantage. The Australian mining company Iris Energy, which originally planned to go public on a shell (SPAC), has now switched to private equity to prevent equity dilution. According to foreign media reports today, its new round of financing raised about US$200 million, which can also verify overseas investment from the side Investors' confidence in the prospect of green mining.
