The 250-kiosk profit-share, and why it is not ‘Bitcoin investing’
A profit-share arrangement on roughly 250 Bitcoin Depot kiosks — 200 in the United States, 50 in Canada — designed to produce returns from operating economics rather than asset prices.
When people ask the firm about its exposure to Bitcoin, the conversation tends to head, by default, toward the price of the underlying. That is the wrong question. The firm’s interest, where it has one, is operational rather than directional.
Through the Special Situations strategy, Sopris holds a profit-share position on approximately 250 Bitcoin Depot kiosks — about 200 in the United States and 50 in Canada. The structure is straightforward. The kiosks are owned, deployed, and maintained by the operator. Sopris participates in the operating economics of the units. The return profile is therefore a function of throughput, fees, and uptime — not of where Bitcoin trades on any given day.
Daniel Wedman, the strategy’s head, structured the program. His prior experience at Galaxy Digital’s mining team gave him an unusually granular view into the operating economics of physical Bitcoin infrastructure, and the program is an extension of that view. It is not a speculative position. It is, by design, an operating one.
A category that produces a great deal of price commentary also produces a great deal of cash-handling, hardware maintenance, and field operations.Daniel Wedman
There is a useful frame here that gets lost in the broader conversation. A category that produces a great deal of price commentary also produces a great deal of cash-handling, hardware maintenance, and field operations. The cash-handling, hardware maintenance, and field operations are businesses. The firm prefers to invest in businesses.
The profit-share program is the cleanest expression of that preference in the Special Situations book.