UK’s First Bitcoin-Backed Digital Credit Begins Trading Next Month

The Smarter Web Company has opened the IPO for MORE, a sterling perpetual preferred intended as the first Bitcoin-treasury preferred on the London Stock Exchange Main Market. If the raise clears a £10 million floor and the remaining listing tests, dealings start at 8.00 a.m. on 14 October.

Shareholders cleared the way on 28 September, passing all three resolutions with more than 99.8 per cent support. The FCA approved the prospectus the next day and the company launched a combined institutional and UK retail offer.

MORE is priced at £90 against a £100 liquidation preference and an initial 12 per cent annual dividend on that £100 reference amount — a 13.33 per cent running yield at issue. Dividends are cumulative, accrue daily, and are designed to be paid weekly in sterling. The board can later lift the rate to a 20 per cent cap or cut it in steps of no more than 0.5 per cent every four weeks, and not below Bank of England base rate plus 1 per cent. Unpaid amounts stack and restrict junior distributions until they are cleared.

The target is £15 million to £25 million of gross proceeds from up to 277,777 offer shares, plus 100,000 shares reserved for an ATM facility. Net proceeds are guided at £13.1 million to £22.7 million, mostly for working capital and coupon reserves, with a large slice for more Bitcoin and a smaller amount for the operating business. Admission also needs three registered market makers and a public free-float test.

Retail applications run through Winterflood’s WRAP platform and intermediaries including Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Interactive Investor. Minimum ticket is £500. The offer is limited to investors resident and physically present in the UK. Books close at 4.30 p.m. on 9 October.

MORE is preferred equity of a UK plc whose primary treasury reserve is Bitcoin — not an ETF, a coin-backed note, or a claim on a locked wallet. As of the prospectus date the company held about 2,747 BTC at a net average cost of roughly £82,562. Coins sit with institutional custodians. Ordinary shares already trade as SWC in London, TSWCF in the US and 3M8 in Frankfurt.

The legal path to a weekly sterling coupon ran through a High Court-confirmed £210 million capital reduction earlier this year. Unrealised Bitcoin gains do not create distributable reserves under IFRS; that reduction moved share premium into reserves and left about £132.5 million of dividend capacity.

The shares have no vote, no maturity and no holder put. The company can redeem them at £110 plus arrears on 10 working days’ notice. In a winding-up they rank behind creditors and ahead of ordinary shares. Any given week’s dividend still depends on distributable profits, net assets and a willing board. There is no FSCS cover. Bitcoin volatility can hit both the balance sheet and the cash available to pay the coupon.

When MORE lists, it becomes one of the first Bitcoin-treasury preferreds on a major exchange outside the US, and Smarter Web says the first UK-listed equity with a weekly dividend. The product is aimed at sterling income capital that wants Bitcoin exposure one layer down the stack, not a leveraged claim on sats per ordinary share.

The IPO is still conditional. Fall short of £10 million, miss the market-maker or free-float tests, or terminate the placing agreement, and admission does not happen. Even after listing, 13.3 per cent is only as durable as the reserves and the Bitcoin price behind it. The prospectus — not the social-media summary — is the document that counts.