The bet on stablecoins

Ethereum as Wall Street stablecoin rails. My MSE interview on learning from failure and wrapping up all things Minera Alamos. LODE bought deal craters share price.

Weekend notebook …

• Ethereum

• Mining Stock Education interview

• Portfolio updates

• Royalty roundup

If you’re here for the mining, you can just skip the first section and move on to the rest.

The big bet on Ethereum and stablecoins

The killer app for crypto has finally become clear - and it’s stablecoins.

Stablecoins are tokenized cash issued by private institutions on public blockchains (for example, Ethereum), pegged to fiat currency, and backed by audited reserves.

- McKinsey¹

When the Internet was first coming into prominence, you couldn’t invest directly into the HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) protocol and just collect a toll. HTTPS runs on top of the internet and the websites you visit are hosted on a specific server. Everything is centralized with the goal of confidentiality and security of data.

Stablecoins are the rare instance where decentralized blockchain technology isn’t just recreating a worse version of existing financial infrastructure. HTTPS doesn’t have a shared global ledger of balances, consensus across multiple parties or the ability to enforce rules automatically using smart contracts. If you want to avoid capital controls in Southeast Asia, buy tokenized versions of real world assets, avoid the fees and clunkiness of the SWIFT network, or execute a smart contract you need stablecoins. And those stablecoins have to be minted on a blockchain.

Why Ethereum? Why now?

The GENIUS Act, passed this summer, reduced legal risk tied to stablecoin issuance and reserve backing for US institutions. The act preserves the US government as regulator but leaves stablecoin issuance to banks, fintechs, and corporates that are fully backed, pegged, and audited. For Wall Street, the race is on to get their piece of the profitable business model pioneered by Tether, Circle and TRON.

Ethereum may be slower and more expensive than alternatives, but it’s compliant with the US government regulations and political goals. It’s fully decentralized with no downtime and approximately 60% of all stablecoins are already issued on Ethereum and its Layer‑2 networks. Ethereum’s support for programmable tokens (ERC‑20) and smart contracts makes it perfect for stablecoins, providing capabilities like minting, redemption, and automated compliance.

The trade

I was early, buying shares and warrants of Ether Capital in 2020 for 40 cents. I’ve never sold and we’re getting close to payday. Aside from buying Ether Capital (since converted to the Purpose Ether Staking ETF) and ETFs a while ago, I’ve structured an options trade that will capture the last parabolic move of this crypto cycle as Ethereum blows past its all-time highs in the next 5-6 months.

Technical analysis is not my area of expertise, but I’ll be selling my Ethereum proxies - options, ETFs, everything - as the ETH price moves through a range of USD$9000-$12000.

Mining Stock Education interview

Not much lead-in required after last week’s post-mortem on Minera Alamos. This is probably my favourite interview that I’ve done. It’s less about MAI and more about learning from failure and having a process in place to analyze failed investments.

A few takeaways:

• I need better lighting if I’m going to be doing interviews during thunderstorms.

• The positive feedback from people in the mining industry, institutional investors and C-suite executives has been a surprise.

• The why-do-I-want-to-listen-to-this-loser feedback from certain retail investors has not been surprising at all.

Portfolio updates

Comstock equity offering

LODE shares dropped through the floor after announcing an equity offering that takes shares outstanding from 35-million to 49-million.

Created with TradingView

I was a buyer below $2.50 as the company is now fully funded with more than $25-million in cash to ramp up its solar panel recycling operation. They’ve also cleaned up all the legacy liabilities from previous failed acquisitions.

Dilution is never good but it wasn’t unexpected and it’s nowhere near my stress tested valuation. Execution risk is real and that’s a factor each investor has to evaluate for themselves, but this is now a company with a bullet-proof balance sheet. We’re on the path a $1/share of EPS with positive surprises possible as non-core assets get monetized.

Altius Minerals gets the full bag

ALS.TO is in line to receive the full USD$275-million payment from Franco Nevada for Silicon. Altius won an arbitration hearing that backs its interpretation of the area of interest for the Silicon royalty.

“The final award meets the royalty area requirement set out in the recent sales agreement between Altius and Franco-Nevada Corporation for a 1.0% NSR royalty that is to cause an additional US$25 million contingent payment to Altius, following the expiry of any relevant appeal or challenge periods.”

Altius still holds a 0.5% NSR on Silicon.

Other updates

• Aecon announced a renewed share buyback for 5% of the float.

• NGEX says its royalty spinout will take place as soon as it receives approval to list the spinco on the TSXV. I added more NGEX Minerals with some of my liberated Minera Alamos cash.

• Triple Flag and Gold Royalty are flush. In the case of GROY, cash flow from $3000 gold and increasing GEOs is facilitating a rapid transfer of value from debt to equity holders (convertible debentures are now well into the money, leaving a line of credit as the only significant debt). With TFPM.TO trading above $36, my Orogen spinco shares are well into negative cost base territory. I’ll be thinking more about taking partial profits in these positions in the next few weeks.

Updated Portfolio

As of August 15, 2025

Mining

• KGCRF - Kinross Contingent Value Rights

• Mayfair Gold

Industrials

• Comstock Inc. - Silver

• Aecon - Nuclear

Royalties

• Gold Royalty Corp. (20% Warrants, 80% Common shares)

• Triple Flag Precious Metals

• Altius Minerals

Exploration/Prospect Generators

• Kenorland Minerals

• Orogen 2.0

• Kingfisher Metals

• Vulcan Minerals

Specials/Workouts

• NGEx Minerals

• Chibougamau Independent Mines

• Star Royalties

• Eagle Royalties (Exiting portfolio upon completion of RTO/resumption of trading)

Raw Commodities

• Sprott Physical Uranium Trust

Royalty Roundup

When Mako Mining bought the Moss mine in northwestern Arizona out of bankruptcy, one of the potential value drivers was eliminating all the streams and royalty encumbrances placed on the asset by the previous owner. The silver stream is gone. As of now, there are two remaining royalties on Moss:

• Patriot Gold owns a 3% NSR

• Sandstorm Gold has a 1% NSR

Mako CEO Akiba Leisman tells me all sides have acknowledged the ability for the bankruptcy court judge to issue a summary judgement in the case. “Discovery should be complete next week. Sandstorm is first on the docket, and I would expect to hear back in 45 days.”

Leisman says Mako is open to settling the case. Interesting note: I tried calling Patriot and got a full voicemail … just because a company is listed doesn’t mean there’s anyone home.

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Fun fact: Running a royalty business isn’t just about cashing cheques … you have to make sure those cheques don’t bounce! From the second-quarter financial results of $19-million market cap royaltyco Silver Crown Royalties:

• $140,500 in outstanding payments from Gold Mountain Mining

• $541,756 in minimum accrued payments from Pilar Gold are due and delayed

Gold Mountain is in receivership and the Elk mine is a disaster. That money is gone. Pilar Gold will presumably pay when they restart operations PGDM Complex in Brazil sometime in the fourth quarter.

I was interested in learning more about Kuya/Bethania, but that itch has passed. I’ve never seen a company make it harder to determine what assets they own.

Who lists their royalties by geographic co-ordinates rather than naming companies and stream/royalty terms? I’m sure everything is documented in a filing, but this is a clown move.

1. The stable door opens: How tokenized cash enables next-gen payments