1 hour ago
15
Argentina just got its first publicly listed Bitcoin treasury company, and it’s taking a page straight from the MicroStrategy playbook, with a distinctly South American twist.
Zonda Bitcoin Capital plans to change its stock ticker to ZOND on the Buenos Aires stock exchange, known as BYMA. The company intends to ramp up its Bitcoin exposure primarily through regulated US spot Bitcoin ETFs, with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as the chief instrument of choice.
From Hulytego to ZOND: the backstory
Zonda Bitcoin Capital wasn’t always in the Bitcoin business. The company acquired control of Hulytego S.A.I.C. in December 2025, then set about transforming the old corporate shell into something entirely different: a vehicle designed to accumulate Bitcoin exposure and reflect it back to shareholders.
The ticker change to ZOND, pending regulatory approvals, is the outward signal of that internal overhaul. CEO Leonardo Rubinstein has described the strategy as one focused on systematically increasing Bitcoin or Bitcoin ETF holdings per share over time.
Rather than holding Bitcoin on its own balance sheet, Zonda plans to channel exposure through US-regulated ETF products. Argentina’s tax and regulatory environment makes direct crypto holdings operationally messy for a publicly traded entity. Routing through IBIT and similar instruments sidesteps those complications while still delivering the economic exposure shareholders are after.
Why ETFs instead of actual Bitcoin
US spot Bitcoin ETFs come with institutional-grade custody, regulatory clarity, and deep liquidity. For a company trying to attract both retail and institutional Argentine investors, those features matter. Zonda isn’t asking BYMA or Argentina’s securities authority to bless direct cryptocurrency holdings on a public company’s books. It’s holding shares of a regulated US financial product.
The MicroStrategy comparison, and where it diverges
The corporate Bitcoin treasury model that MicroStrategy popularized has spawned imitators worldwide. Over 100 public companies have now adopted some version of the strategy, accumulating Bitcoin on their balance sheets and marketing themselves as equity proxies for the asset.
Zonda is explicitly drawing on that template. The “Bitcoin per share” metric that Rubinstein has highlighted mirrors the framework MicroStrategy uses to demonstrate value accretion to shareholders. But MicroStrategy buys and custodies actual Bitcoin, while Zonda is wrapping US ETF exposure inside an Argentine equity listing.
For an Argentine retail investor, buying ZOND shares on BYMA is dramatically simpler than opening a US brokerage account, navigating foreign exchange restrictions, and purchasing IBIT directly.
What this means for investors
ZOND shares will be priced in Argentine pesos, but the underlying exposure is denominated in US dollars via IBIT, which itself tracks a dollar-priced asset. In a country where the peso has a complicated relationship with stability, that currency mismatch could either amplify or dampen returns depending on which direction the exchange rate moves.
Zonda’s structure means investors are exposed to multiple layers of counterparty and regulatory risk: the Argentine equity market, the company’s management decisions, the US ETF wrapper, and ultimately Bitcoin’s price itself.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
English (US) ·