In Quebec’s sub‑arctic taiga, the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach has done more than permit a mine on its ancestral land—it has bought into the metal that could lighten every jet, satellite, and electric vehicle now on drawing boards around the world. Scandium Canada Ltd. (TSXV: SCD), which is advancing the Crater Lake deposit as what it calls “the world’s leading primary source of scandium,” confirmed last week that the community‑controlled Taasipitaakin Trust invested C$334,000 for 16.7 million units—enough for a 5% equity stake in the junior miner.“It’s a very important milestone that we just reached,” CEO Guy Bourassa told InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes. The transaction caps a year‑long courtship that began with an April 2024 pre‑development agreement, paused for a band‑council election, and resumed only after newly elected leaders had, as Bourassa put it, “the time that they need to understand what you’re about, what scandium is all about, why should it be moved out of the earth.”The answer, he argued, lies in aluminum. “When you explain that it completely transform[s] aluminum and [is] strong as steel and as resistant as titanium… you can help the world reduce its GHG,” he said. Quebec already smelts more aluminum than any other North‑American jurisdiction; adding a whisper of scandium creates alloys that are lighter, corrosion‑proof and electrically conductive—attributes coveted by aerospace primes, automakers, and, increasingly, defense contractors.Such commercial promise helped persuade Naskapi Elders and youth alike that equity, not just royalties, offered the surest path to “jobs and a say in the development of a project.” “We were able to strike an initial deal for 5% of the company and we’re very, very glad,” Bourassa said, noting that the structure echoes Washington’s own decision this year to take a direct stake in MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP).The partnership extends beyond rocks and shares. Three years ago, Scandium Canada began working with McMaster University to design scandium‑aluminum powders for 3‑D printing. “We have now decided to put a division specifically on developing and commercialization,” Bourassa revealed, citing early demand for extrusions, welding wire and additive‑manufacturing feedstock that could underwrite a future construction decision at Crater Lake.For the Naskapi, the investment is a bet on both geology and leadership. “They haven’t just invested in an exploration company,” Hughes observed. “They’ve invested in a CEO who has a track record of taking exploration companies to production.” Bourassa, who once shepherded Nemaska Lithium from concept to construction, seemed unfazed by the parallel: “We are definitively very, very active, strongly active on this as we speak,” he said, moments after recalling the community meeting where he described scandium’s potential to “bring something good” to humanity.Whether the next milestone arrives in a boardroom, a pilot plant, or the vast spruce‑lined corridor north of Schefferville, both partners now hold an equal incentive to reach it—one share certificate at a time.

From mining Bitcoin in rural British Columbia to engineering SCIF‑rated data centers for quantum‑ready defense work, DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. (TSXV: DMGI | OTCQB: DMGGF) has quietly emerged as Canada’s stealth contender at the crossroads of crypto and national security. “We’ve publicly stated that DMG has secured up to 10 megawatts of SCIF‑rated modular data centers,” CEO Sheldon Bennett told InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes in a recent interview. The facilities—engineered so that “people can’t read information and pick up radio waves and do all sorts of snooping”—signal DMG’s quiet leap from stalwart Bitcoin producer to supplier of secured compute power for quantum‑inflected artificial‑intelligence workloads.Formed in 2016 and public since 2018, DMG was the first Canadian Bitcoin miner to list on a stock exchange. Its early bet on vertical integration—owning data centers, developing mining software and building a carbon‑neutral ecosystem—now looks prescient as governments move to curb emissions and as Bitcoin’s halving economics squeeze inefficient operators. “We’re really focused on being able to build a Bitcoin at the lowest cost possible for a public company,” Mr. Bennett said, noting that constant uptime and disciplined overhead matter more than chasing the absolute cheapest kilowatt hour.That discipline is tested daily. On July 2, the company reported that a lightning‑sparked outage and contamination woes in its liquid‑cooled “hydro” rigs cut June output to 23 bitcoins, down from 31 in May. Realized hashrate slipped to 1.56 EH/s, but DMG still held 341 bitcoins on its balance sheet and reaffirmed a goal of 3 EH/s by year‑end 2025. “In June, we encountered several unforeseen issues with our Bitcoin mining infrastructure,” Mr. Bennett conceded in a news release, yet he portrayed the setbacks as catalysts for a broader migration to “pockets of low‑cost renewable energy” across Canada.That migration dovetails with DMG’s most ambitious product: Terra Pool, billed as the world’s first carbon‑neutral Bitcoin mining pool. “We only allow people to apply and join that are on carbon‑neutral energy,” Mr. Bennett said. The resulting coins let institutional investors “move Bitcoin in a sustainable and regulatory‑compliant manner,” a pitch that dovetails neatly with the company’s wholly owned Systemic Trust Company. “Instead of buying bitcoins from Robinhood or Coinbase where you’ll have carbon in all of your transactions,” he explained, “you can actually go to our trust and have the bitcoins moved by us.”Investors weighing a straight bitcoin ETF against DMG stock may find the miner’s economics compelling. “In general, it costs around $50,000 in power to generate a Bitcoin,” Mr. Bennett said, pointing to six‑figure spot prices and DMG’s lean cost structure. ETFs must constantly “buy and sell to rebalance,” racking up fees, whereas a miner can expand margins by upgrading hardware or tapping cheaper power. DMG’s next wave of upgrades—retiring air‑cooled rigs in favor of liquid‑cooled hydro units—should, he argued, deliver both higher efficiency and longer equipment life.All this unfolds as Washington rewrites the rulebook for digital assets. “With Donald Trump coming in, with the change in policy around digital assets, with significant U.S. banks getting more involved, I think that day [of mass adoption] is coming,” Mr. Bennett said. His own litmus test remains “the day my mom and dad will have their checking, savings or mortgage in their Bitcoin account at their local bank.”

For four decades, Kamran M. Khozan—Founder, CEO and Chairman of CVMR® Corporation—has pressed metallurgy, capital markets and public policy toward one audacious idea: emancipating critical minerals from the financing gridlock that keeps them scarce, opaque and under‑valued. CVMR, headquartered in Toronto but active in 22 countries, can refine 36 metals into ultra‑pure powders and net‑shape products; now Khozan wants to make those metals function as liquid financial assets.The mechanism arrived on July 17, when CVMR signed a Memorandum of Understanding with FINATRADES of RAMINVEST Holding, a Dubai‑ and Swiss‑based fintech platform. The partnership will lock refined metal—nickel ingots, cobalt powder, rare earth oxides, uranium—into secure vaults, tag each tranche to a cryptographic token, and let industrial buyers, sovereign funds and lenders trade or collateralize the tokens as easily as bullion. “Finally, the technology, the financial community and the mining community are at a stage where they can marry each other in developing something that has not been done before,” Khozan told InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes.Jack Lifton, Co‑Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), captured the scale of the ambition: “This has been tried many times before, but never by a powerhouse like this.” Khozan’s definition of powerhouse is expansive. The venture aims to become “the largest critical minerals conglomerate,” spanning extraction, refinement, finance and marketing in one transparent loop. Each token will be backed one‑to‑one by physical metal certified by CVMR and listed on the FINATRADES exchange. “One of the major problems of the mining companies, especially small to medium‑sized companies, is finding finance for what they’re trying to do,” Khozan said. “This probably will solve that problem.”He argues that tokenization gives strategic elements the bankable stature long monopolized by gold. “Gold is gold, whether it’s in the ground or in your hand… Other metals do not have that status. We tried to give them that status and I think finally we have managed to do that.” The marketplace will begin with hubs in Texas, Tirana, London and Toronto; Khozan expects tighter bid‑ask spreads and fewer arbitrage opportunities. “If I’m buying cobalt, I want to know how it was mined, how it was refined, what chain of supply it went through,” he said. “This system… gives the market a stable pricing for all these metals that cannot deviate too much.”Transparency extends to taxation and human‑rights compliance—an explicit rebuke to the tax‑avoidance mystique that clings to parts of the crypto industry. “We are trying not to do that clever thing and dodge taxes,” Khozan said with a dry laugh. “Blockchain—something that is traceable—you know where the origin is. You know that these institutions… have a good human‑rights track record.” A joint working group has been formed to police compliance, product development and risk management.Africa, where CVMR already concentrates ore at the mine site, stands to benefit early. Khozan envisions refining roughly half the output in‑country, developing local engineers and tax bases, while shipping the remainder to North American facilities. “If we start slowly in those countries and refine… then bring some of it to North America, we have spread the goods,” he said. The model, he added, avoids the “straitjacket” of conditional lending by multilateral banks: “Our banking system does not impose those conditions… From inside we create jobs, we create technology, we educate.” The approach also appeals to governments eager for supply‑chain security. The partnership’s white‑paper highlights physical custody, immutable ledgers and ESG vetting as antidotes to price shocks and resource nationalism. Khozan’s invitation is open‑ended: “We can do this for the entire industry,” he said. “Whoever wants to do this is welcomed into the system and we can help them finance it, refine their metals and also market them.”