Note 8. Investments

Coinsquare

In September 2017, the Company acquired a minority interest for $3.0 million in Coinsquare, which operates a digital crypto currency exchange platform in Canada. During February 2018, the Company invested an additional $6.4 million to acquire additional common stock of Coinsquare. These additional investments resulted in a current ownership in Coinsquare by the Company of approximately 11.7% ownership in Coinsquare on a fully diluted basis. The Company has evaluated the guidance in ASU 2016-01, Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities, and elected to account for the investment using the measurement alternative as the equity securities are without a readily determinable fair value and do not give the Company significant influence over Coinsquare. The measurement alternative at cost, less any impairment, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes. As of December 31, 2019 and 2018, the Company considered the cost of the investment to not exceed the fair value of the investment and did not observe price changes.

Tess

In 2017, the Company acquired approximately 52% of Tess which is developing blockchain solutions for telecommunications companies. Under the terms of the Purchase Agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”) the Company invested cash of approximately $0.3 million in Tess and issued 75,000 shares of restricted Common Stock to Tess in exchange for 2,708,333 shares of common stock of Tess. The 75,000 shares of Common Stock were valued at the $8.49 market price as of October 20, 2017 for a total of approximately $0.6 million.  Accordingly, Tess became a majority-owned subsidiary of the Company.  As part of the transaction, the Company and Tess entered into a registration rights agreement pursuant to which the Company agreed to file a registration statement to register the resale of 25,000 shares (of 75,000 shares) of Common Stock issued to Tess. The 2017 acquisition of Tess was accounted for as a business combination in accordance with the provisions of ASC 805. The allocation of purchase consideration includes $0.7 million as in-process research and development (IPR&D) related to the TessPay project. As of December 31, 2018, the Company had $0.6 million of intangibles related to Tess’s internal technology platform. 

In January 2018, following the execution of a non-binding letter of intent as of December 11, 2017, the parties executed a definitive agreement providing that Tess agreed to merge with Cresval Capital Corp. (“Cresval”) (TSX-V: CRV). Assuming closing conditions are met, upon closing of the anticipated merger, Tess would be publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange (the “TSXV”).

During the year ended December 31, 2018, Tess received approximately $0.5 million from the sale of shares of Riot Blockchain common stock held by Tess, which has been recorded as a credit to the consolidated Common Stock of the Company. Additionally, Tess issued approximately 189,000 of its common shares in exchange for cash proceeds of approximately $220,000 thereby reducing the investment percentage held by the Company from 52.01% to 50.2% as of December 31, 2018. Due to the termination of the Cresval Agreement on February 15, 2019, the Company recorded an impairment loss of $2.1 million consisting of $0.7 million of in process research and development costs, $0.6 million related to capitalized costs of Tess’s internal technology platform and $0.8 million of goodwill during the year ended December 31, 2018.

On April 10, 2019, Tess closed on a funding agreement under which approximately 23.8 million shares of Tess were issued for CAD $1.2 million. As a result of this and subsequent funding’s, the Company’s ownership in Tess was reduced to approximately 8.8%. Subsequently Tess was no longer being consolidated in the Company’s consolidated financial statements.

As of December 31, 2019, the Company evaluated its remaining interest in Tess under the guidance of ASU 2016-01, Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities, and determined it should remeasure its retained interest at fair value upon deconsolidation to establish a new cost basis. As of December 31, 2019, the fair value of the Tess shares owned by the Company is approximately $0.1 million, calculated based upon the April 10, 2019 funding price as follows (in thousands except for share and per share amounts):

The Company accounts for deconsolidation of subsidiaries in which it loses controlling interest in the financial interest of the subsidiary in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 810-10-40 – “Consolidation”.

The deconsolidation of Tess resulted in a gain of approximately $1.1 million calculated as follows (in thousands) on the date of deconsolidation:

Verady

During November 2017, the Company made a $0.2 million investment in a convertible note as part of a series of notes issued by Verady, LLC (“Verady”). The notes are unsecured, subordinated to other approved liabilities, mature December 31, 2022, bear interest at 6%, unless previously repaid or converted and contain other conditions and restrictions, all as defined under the subscription documents. The Verady convertible note was previously recorded at fair value (which approximates cost). The conversion rate of the convertible note is defined based upon the possible occurrence of certain defined events which may or may not occur. The Company has no other relationship or rights associated with Verady. Founded in 2016, Verady is privately held and recently launched VeraNet, a decentralized network of financial reporting and accounting tools targeted to the needs of the cryptocurrency community.

During the year ended December 31, 2019, Verady completed a financing that under the terms of the Company’s original investment, resulted in the automatic conversion of the Company’s convertible note plus accrued interest totaling approximately $0.2 million, into equity of Verady. The automatic conversion resulted in a current ownership in Verady by the Company of approximately 3.2% on a fully diluted basis. The Company has evaluated the guidance in ASU 2016-01, Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities, and elected to account for the investment using the measurement alternative as the equity securities are without a readily determinable fair value and do not give the Company significant influence over Verady. The investment is valued at cost, less any impairment, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes. During the year ended December 31, 2019, there were no price changes in orderly transactions for identical or similar investments in Verady.