NovaBay Pharmaceuticals (NBY) — a Nanocap company with a market cap of about $30 million — has renamed itself a stablecoin development company and changed its ticker to SDEV, signaling a sweeping shift from healthcare to cryptocurrency.
The company said this follows a $134 million private placement backed by firms including Framework Ventures and Tether Investments.
The company is using the funds to establish a large position in SKY, the governance token associated with the Sky Protocol, a decentralized finance protocol that issues USDS, a USD-pegged stablecoin backed by cryptocurrencies.
The company currently holds approximately 2.06 billion SKY tokens, accounting for approximately 8.78% of the total supply and worth approximately $147 million. More than half of these were acquired on the open market at an average price close to $0.065. The rest comes as part of a financing deal that includes cash and stablecoins.
The company also began staking its holdings to earn rewards. According to reports, approximately 26.6 million SKY tokens have been earned so far, with these rewards varying based on network rules and participation.
CoinDesk has reached out to the stablecoin development company for comment but has not received a response as of this writing.
Sky was developed from MakerDAO, and according to the protocol’s website, SKY’s staking rate is currently over 10%. The coin’s value, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, has fallen by approximately 1.45% in the past 24 hours, while the broader cryptocurrency market has gained 4% in the same period.
NBY rose 5% on Monday.
