Peter Schiff's Euro Pacific Asset Management Has Secretly Bought the Bitcoin Bond Nobody Expected

Peter Schiff has built a career on deriding Bitcoin. The outspoken gold evangelist and fund manager famously scoffed in 2019, “Keep dreaming.

Peter Schiff, the outspoken gold evangelist and fund manager, is famously known for his skepticism towards Bitcoin. As recently as December 2023, Schiff was still asserting that Bitcoin was “going to zero…just traveling a long road.”

However, recent SEC filings reveal that Schiff’s own asset management arm had acquired exposure to a bitcoin-backed bond late last year. This finding is especially ironic considering Schiff’s strong anti-BTC stance and his frequent predictions of bitcoin’s impending doom.

The instrument in question is a bitcoin treasury bond issued by Samara Asset Group p.l.c, a European asset manager (formerly Cryptology Asset Group) whose shares are traded on the Euronext Growth Oslo exchange. Last November, Samara successfully issued what it calls “Europe’s first-ever Bitcoin Bond,” raising €20 million to expand its portfolio and significantly increase its bitcoin treasury holdings.

The bond (ISIN: NO0013364398) is structured as a 5-year senior secured note maturing in 2029, offering a substantial 10.062% annual coupon. Additionally, the bond includes an innovative incentive: bondholders receive an extra 0.25% premium on principal for every €0.25 increase in Samara’s Net Asset Value (NAV) per share, closely aligning bondholder interests with shareholders.

Samara’s CEO Patrick Lowry described the issuance enthusiastically, noting it was “the very first time in history a European firm has taken a page out of the ‘Michael Saylor playbook,’ issuing a bond explicitly with the intent to acquire bitcoin.”

Indeed, within weeks of the bond issuance, Samara utilized the proceeds to purchase approximately 76 BTC for its treasury and invested in several crypto-focused venture funds.

The bond’s backstory reads like pure rocket fuel for institutional Bitcoin enthusiasts. Announced in October 2024 amid rising BTC prices, the Samara Bitcoin Bond was designed to leverage bitcoin as a strategic treasury reserve asset. Samara positioned it as a win-win proposition: investors would enjoy a high yield coupled with additional NAV-based upside, while Samara could allocate capital into Bitcoin and pioneering tech investments.

By early November, the bond had successfully closed its private placement at €20 million (minimum investment ticket: €100k) and is expected to be publicly listed for trading on the Oslo and Frankfurt exchanges within one to two weeks. Notably, this bond is secured by an overcollateralized portfolio comprising a €150 million basket of Samara’s venture investments, locked securely within a guarantor SPV—resulting in an ultra-low loan-to-value ratio of approximately 13.3%.

Little did anyone suspect that among these bondholders would be Peter Schiff’s Euro Pacific.

Enter the EuroPac International Bond Fund, a global bond mutual fund managed by Euro Pacific Asset Management — the firm founded and helmed by Peter Schiff. Schiff, as an owning member of the advisor, has long shaped Euro Pacific’s strategy around his macro views (hard money, skepticism of the U.S. dollar, affinity for gold and foreign bonds).

The EuroPac International Bond Fund typically holds a mix of sovereign and corporate debt from around the world, aligned with Schiff’s thesis that non-U.S. assets can protect against dollar debasement. It’s the last place one would expect to find anything related to Bitcoin. But that’s exactly what turned up when the fund’s SEC filings were published this year.

In the fund’s Form N-PORT P disclosure (a mandatory SEC filing of portfolio holdings) covering late 2024, a curious line item appears: “Samara Asset Group PLC” — identified by the very same ISIN (NO0013364398) of Samara’s Bitcoin bond. The filing shows EuroPac’s bond fund held €800,000 principal value of Samara’s Bitcoin bond, valued at roughly $870,000 USD, as of the reporting date. That position represented about 1.58% of the fund’s net assets.

In plainer terms, Peter Schiff’s flagship bond fund became a financier of a bitcoin-backed enterprise, even as Schiff himself spent 2024 loudly bashing bitcoin’s rally.

To be clear, this holding was likely a small, yield-driven allocation made by the fund’s managers (Schiff’s team includes co-managers Jim Nelson, CFA, and Steve Kleckner, CAIA). From a bond investor’s perspective, Samara’s 10%+ coupon for a 5-year note—secured by a trove of tech investments and bitcoin reserves—may have simply looked like an attractive high-yield opportunity.

Factoring in EuroPac’s International Bond Fund mandate to seek income in international markets