Bitbank is preparing for an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, making it the second largest Japanese company to request regulatory permission to go public.
The Japanese cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank Inc. is attempting to go public to increase its market share and profit on Japan’s increasing interest in digital assets. The trading firm intends to go public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, according to a regulatory filing that was published today, July 31.
However, the exact date and details of the public offering still need to be discovered because they are pending regulatory clearances and other procedural requirements. According to the statement, Bitbank was founded in 2014, and as of the end of the previous year, it had a capital base of ¥8.65 billion yen, or roughly $60 million.
The listing could be halted based on future assessments and market conditions; the exchange did not rule out. As of June, the three largest shareholders of Bitbank were Ceres Inc. at 23.05%, MIXI, Inc. at 26.99%, and co-founder Noriyuki Hirose at 30.69%.Â
Bitbank obtained ¥7.5 billion in funding in 2021 from MIXI and Ceres to expand on its current operations and explore new business opportunities such as initial exchange offerings, staking, custody, non-fungible tokens, and layer-2 solution-based payment methods.
In contrast to MIXI, Bitbank was also financially supported by Ceres, a Japanese marketing services company, as early as 2015. The precise amount of this money is yet unknown. With its filing, Bitbank became the second cryptocurrency exchange in Japan that was aiming to go public.
A merger with Thunder Bridge Capital Partners IV, a particular purpose acquisition company, Coincheck intends to go public on Nasdaq. The deal is anticipated to close in the third quarter of this year.
