Galaxy Digital raises $500 million in convertible debt to fund business expansion

The move comes after the company increased its net profits by over ten-fold in the last quarter.

Galaxy Digital, a cryptocurrency brokerage and merchant bank founded by billionaire investor Michael Novogratz, announced on Monday that it would be issuing $500 million in exchangeable senior notes to accelerate business initiatives. The debt is convertible into company equity and bears an interest rate of 3% per annum, with maturity in 2026. New expansion areas include nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, with the firm committing $62 million of its capital into 22 NFT-related companies since the start of the year.

Over the years, Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz has been a famed bullish investor of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. He has called on other investors to allocate anywhere between 1% to 5% of their portfolio to crypto. Under his guidance, the firm’s assets under management surpassed $3 billion in an update provided in October, becoming one of the largest digital currency investment companies in the world.

The company is registered in the Cayman Islands, and its shares are listed on Canada’s Toronto Stock Exchange. However, it is in the process of restructuring to list its shares in the United States next year. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to approve of its potential listing.

In the past quarter, Galaxy Digital’s net income from trading, investment, asset management, crypto mining and other corporate sources amounted to $517.1 million, increasing from $41.5 million from the prior year’s quarter. Shares have gained 405.4% year over year to $23.51 (converted from Canadian dollars) apiece as of Monday.