[Blockchain Today Reporter Kim So-yeon] San Francisco-based Kraken cryptocurrency exchange has not yet confirmed that it will follow in the footsteps of Coinbase, but it does not rule out the possibility of listing through a company for acquisition purposes.
In a written interview with Cointelegraph, Kraken said, “If we decide to open the exchange in the US, we will do so through direct registration.” This comes after the speculation of Fox Business’s Charles Gasparino, who argued the day before that Kraken was considering going public through SPAC or IPO.
A Kraken official said, “If Kraken decides to release it, it will be released through the list directly, not through SPAC. “It’s too big for us to go that way,” he said. “Kraken has no plans to publicly list this year, but we may consider public registration next year. At this point, we haven’t made any decisions.”
SPAC (Company Acquisition Purposes) is a company already listed on the stock exchange that can acquire private companies such as Kraken, and can fundamentally bypass the existing initial disclosure process. The day before Cointelegraph was reported, eToro, a cryptocurrency-friendly trading platform, announced that it would push forward with this disclosure process with FinTech Acquisition Corp V (SPAC).
On the other hand, IPO requires companies to file an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and issue shares directly. Coinbase is known to have taken the route as an IPO with an appreciation of about $100 billion.
Some estimate the value of the Kraken at around $10 billion. However, a spokesperson for the exchange said that the numbers “will be undervalued for us.” The exchange claims that SPAC is “too big” for it, but the merger between Itoro and Fintech’s acquisition company V is also known to reach $10 billion.
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