The international crypto exchange Blockchain.com has the wish to go public this year. Blockchain.com is a competitor of the already listed Coinbase, which was valued at 10.6 billion GBP during an investment round in March.
By comparison, Coinbase currently has a market cap of approximately $29 billion. Blockchain.com is therefore one of the few exchanges in the world that ‘comes close to’ the valuation of Coinbase.
Blockchain.com has been around as a trading platform since the early days. The company was founded in 2011, two years after the launch of Bitcoin. However, it is not yet certain that Blockchain.com will appear on the stock exchange this year. According to the company’s representatives, the IPO could be postponed to 2023 or even not take place at all.
Crypto companies to the stock exchange
The desire of Blockchain.com to go public is certainly no longer rare in the crypto world. Most people know by now that the large Coinbase is publicly traded, but the majority of listed crypto companies are miners. For example, some major listed names in the mining industry include Riot Blockchain, Hut 8 mining, Riot Blockchain, and Marathon Digital Holdings.
In addition, you could now also see MicroStrategy as a listed bitcoin company. The company of CEO Michael Saylor now has 129,218 bitcoin on its balance sheet, which at the current price is good for a value of 5.2 billion dollars (3.99 billion GBP). Saylor’s MicroStrategy holds 0.615 percent of all bitcoin.
Tesla and Block are also two listed parties with a decent amount of bitcoin on the balance sheet. Tesla holds 42,902 bitcoin and Jack Dorsey’s Block owns 8,027. In short, bitcoin and the stock market is a combination that is becoming increasingly common. This development is indicative of the growing adoption of bitcoin within the traditional world.
The Rise of Spot Bitcoin ETFs
With the continued uptake in adoption of bitcoin within the traditional financial world, more and more spot bitcoin ETFs are entering the market. These are investment products in which individuals, but also large funds, can easily invest in ‘physical bitcoin’. By buying an ETF, investors can invest in bitcoin without having to manage the bitcoin themselves.
The ETF provider controls the buying and selling of the bitcoin in the background. Contrary to popular belief, a spot bitcoin ETF is not necessary for institutional investors to invest in bitcoin. The stories that certain funds are not allowed to buy physical bitcoin and are allowed to invest in a spot bitcoin ETF are fables.
According to Jesse Spiro of Chainalysis, the lack of legal certainty about the legal status of bitcoin is a major concern for large investors. In that regard, the admission of a spot bitcoin ETF in the United States can provide additional certainty. It’s still a question of when it will come. So far, the American regulator has yet to be convinced.
In Australia, they are even more excited, because the first spot bitcoin ETF will hit the market there next week. It is expected that in the short term, $1 billion in assets will flow into the fund. With this, Australia follows countries such as Canada and Brazil, where spot bitcoin ETFs have been on the market for some time.
