Stablecoin issuer Tether has become the largest shareholder of Nasdaq-listed technology consultancy VCI Global, following a $100 million digital asset transaction involving OOBIT’s native token OOB.
Summary
- Tether will become VCI Global’s largest shareholder through a $100 million digital asset transaction involving OOBIT’s OOB token.
- VCI Global plans to acquire $100 million worth of OOB tokens.
Tether will be entitled of shares in VCI Global as part of its $50 million limited share offering to the OOB Foundation, where it will acquire indirect ownership through its existing stake in OOBIT.
VCI Global is a cross-industry technology platform developer and hopes to position itself as a major player in the digital asset space by integrating OOBIT’s token utility into its AI, fintech and sovereign data platforms.
OOBIT is a mobile crypto payment platform backed by Tether, CMCC Global and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. Tether led OOBIT’s $25 million Series A funding round in February 2024.
VCI Global has already done that bought $50 million worth of OOB tokens through the limited share issuance and will purchase another $50 million with cash purchases after the OOB tokens are publicly launched.
OOBIT is currently in the process of renaming the token and migrating from Ethereum to Solana. According to the official announcement, the process is expected to be completed by November 12. See below.
Because Tether is already the largest stakeholder in OOBIT, it will indirectly receive a significant portion of the newly issued VCI Global shares through the OOB Foundation, effectively becoming the largest shareholder in the Nasdaq-listed company.
Tether has long used strategic investments as a means to expand its position beyond the stablecoin market, where its flagship stablecoin USDT has the largest market share with a total market capitalization of $183 billion.
Just a day ago, Tether-backed video platform Rumble announced plans to acquire German data center operator Northern Data, which also counts Tether among its top investors and financiers. Earlier this year, Tether acquired a minority stake in Bit2Me, a leading Spanish digital asset platform, and in February the stablecoin issuer made a strategic investment in the Zengo wallet to drive global adoption of self-custody and stablecoin-based payments.
And the company’s approach appears to be paying off. Last month, Tether became one of the top 20 global holders of U.S. debt after posting more than $10 billion in full-year profits and $135 billion in exposure to U.S. Treasuries, putting it ahead of government bond holders like South Korea.
