Fold, which describes itself as a “bitcoin financial services company” is set to go public.
The company plans to list on Nasdaq after merging with publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) FTAC Emerald Acquisition Corp, Fold announced in a news release Wednesday (July 24).
“By integrating bitcoin across traditional financial services, Fold acts as a key point of entry for consumers and businesses to engage with and integrate bitcoin into their everyday activities,” the release said.
“Fold customers can seamlessly accumulate, manage, and spend their bitcoin through merchant rewards, debit cards, and bill pay services.”
According to the release, the transaction implies a pre-money equity valuation of $365 million for Fold, which has processed more than $2 billion in volume and has distributed over $45 million in lifetime bitcoin rewards to customers since its founding in 2019.
The company’s services include earning bitcoin rewards on card spending, earning bitcoin for paying bills, rounding up purchases into bitcoin, buying bitcoin with zero fees and storing funds in insured accounts.
Fold’s SPAC comes as other crypto companies are preparing to go public. For example, Circle, issuer of the stablecoin USDC, earlier this year filed paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The company had planned to go public in 2022 through a $9 billion SPAC merger, though that deal was put on hold as it waited for the SEC to approve its S-4 registration document. Circle later said it understood the necessity of a thorough review.
And last month saw reports that the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken was considering embarking on a $100 million funding round before launching a possible IPO.
PYMNTS earlier this month examined the state of the crypto world, 15 years after bitcoin was first minted.
“In the years since, while the adoption of crypto as a mainstream payment mechanism has yet to displace more traditional methods despite the rise of digital transactions, cryptocurrencies have started to find their own success as financial assets,” that report said.
“As crypto increasingly finds its niche as an asset class, industry participants are hoping that the sector can find the runway and land the plane on the rest of blockchain’s transformative potential, too.”
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