Caliber, a publicly traded real estate asset management company, saw its stock price skyrocket Thursday after announcing that it has adopted a digital assets treasury strategy that will center on Chainlink (LINK).
The firm’s strategy was approved by its board of directors, allowing it to allocate a portion of its treasury to acquire LINK—the token that powers a Chainlink’s oracle network, which brings real-world data to blockchain apps. Caliber will use its balance sheet and existing access to capital to acquire LINK, though the firm has not shared how much it intends to acquire.
“This strategy combines what Caliber already does best—raising and managing capital in private equity real estate funds—with one of the most promising financial technologies of our time,” Caliber CEO Chris Loeffler told Decrypt.
“That technology, Chainlink, is directly applicable to our existing real estate business and it will help us to better automate our real estate value calculations (NAV automation), help better administer our funds, and it can help us potentially provide stronger liquidity options for our suite of private funds,” he added.
In addition to the digital asset treasury, the board of directors approved the creation of the Caliber Crypto Advisory Board—a group of crypto and blockchain experts that will help guide the firm’s digital asset treasury strategy. Loeffler told Decrypt that the board’s composition would be announced soon.
Shares in Caliber (CWD) are up 59% since the opening bell on Thursday, now trading hands at $2.70. However, the stock has traded down nearly 4% in the last month and 78% in the last year.
As for why investors would choose CWD shares over buying LINK itself, Loeffler told Decrypt that “it’s a leverage play.”
“We’re going to give them leverage through our consistent acquisition, through the staking process,” he said. “If they’re a big investor in Chainlink already and they want to take a position in Caliber to get sort of a levered play on that, that would be the way to think about it.”
In the near future, it may not be eligible for trading on the Nasdaq, though. A filing with the SEC from Wednesday indicates that Caliber received a letter stating it was no longer in compliance with Nasdaq’s Stockholder Equity Requirement, and therefore has 45 days to provide a plan to Nasdaq which would satisfy that requirement. If it fails to do so, its stock could be delisted from the exchange.
Chainlink (LINK) is up around 2.5% in the last 24 hours and more than 41% on the month.
On Thursday, the Department of Commerce announced it would team up with Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network to integrate macroeconomic data into the DeFi ecosystem.
Furthermore, the 13th largest crypto asset by market cap recently earned an ETF filing from Bitwise. Earlier this month, the team behind the network announced a new Chainlink Reserve funded via the network’s on-chain and off-chain revenues.
Loeffler’s X account bio now notes that he’s a “new recruit to LINK Marines,” referencing a loose group of die-hard Chainlink investors that advocate for the asset across social media. He also celebrated Chainlink’s collaboration with the U.S. government for on-chain economic data.
“Couldn’t have timed it better, the federal government is a pretty good customer for Chainlink,” Loeffler posted on X.