UK-listed fintech Mode becomes first British public company to move part of its capital into Bitcoin

The London Stock Exchange-listed fintech company Mode announced that it had purchased bitcoins worth about £750,000 from its cash reserves, according to Forbes.

The publication noted that it is now the first publicly listed company in Britain to hold BTC on its balance sheet.

The decision to purchase cryptocurrency at the firm was taken about 10 days ago, according to founder and executive chairman Jonathan Rowland.

This step followed the conversion of $50 million of its own capital into Bitcoin by Square, Jack Dorsey’s payments company.

According to Rowland, investments in cryptocurrency are part of a long-term strategy to protect investors’ assets from currency devaluation. The firm intends to convert 10% of its reserves into BTC.

The custodians of the company’s digital assets are BitGo and Coinbase Custody.

Mode positions itself as a provider of a ‘banking Bitcoin app’ for the iPhone. The firm counts more than 25,000 users.

Following the announcement of the cryptocurrency purchase, Mode’s shares rose about 10%, in tandem with the rise in BTC’s price.

Rowland said he hopes for such a correlation to continue. He noted that the firm has now widened for investors the ability to own Bitcoin through the company’s shares, without having to buy and hold the digital currency.

As previously noted, indirect owners of the first cryptocurrency assets include, for example, Norway’s Oil Fund and the largest investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard.

This happened as a result of the purchase of bitcoins by MicroStrategy, the Nasdaq-listed provider of analytics software, for $425 million.

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