Springdale Startup Offers Metal Investors Tokens of Appreciation

A startup in Springdale is raising $17 million to acquire mineral rights.

Strategic Critical Metals Corp. filed its private placement papers with the Securities & Exchange Commission last month and will offer cryptocurrency tokens to investors, said J. Gregg Rollins, the treasurer of the company.

Instead of owning shares of Strategic Critical Metals, however, investors will own “the elements and the metals that the company owns,” Rollins said.

The firm is gathering natural resource claims, which would include cobalt, possibly lithium and others, he said. “We’re just now getting started,” he said.

The money raised would be used to buy more claims and “capture some of the actual minerals inside the claims,” he said.

If investors want the cobalt or rare earth elements, they can deliver the cryptocurrency tokens to SCM and it will hand over the elements. He said some of the metals could be used in the defense industry.

At this point, the claims are in Idaho, where Gregory Schifrin, the company’s geologist CEO, makes his home.

“The corporate office is here because that’s where I am,” Rollins said.