By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
The sources familiar with the matter didn’t confirm anything with surety and said that the deal in currently fluid.
The oldest Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange ‘Bitstamp’ is up for sale, according to the sources familiar with the matter, reports Business Insider. The digital publication on Tuesday, April 24 that three people familiar with the matter said that the cryptocurrency exchange is in the middle of the sale deal and a South Korean gaming company is looking to close the acquisition deal.
Two of the three sources said that Nexon can turn out to be a possible buyer of Bitstamp in a deal which is reportedly worth $350 million. The three people familiar with this matter although refused to get identified sighting security concerns as they were not authorized to report about the deal.
Bitstamp which is said to be the oldest crypto exchange was formed back in 2011 and is currently headquartered in Luxemburg after it moved out of China last year after the country introduced a ban on the crypto trading platform. Today, the daily trading volumes on Bitstamp are found around $500 million, making it as the 10th largest exchange.
On the other hand, the Nexon group was formed in 1995 and currently specializes in designing mobile and PC games. The company has been involved in re-making popular titles like FIFA and Counter-Strike in Korean and Japanese versions. This gaming company is also listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is currently valued with a market capitalization of ¥1.3 trillion ($12.7 billion, £9.1 billion).
While talking about the deal, the sources said that it is still in the mid-way and there are also chances that it could fall apart. The sources said that before the Nexon deal, Bitstamp was also involved in another sales process.
A spokesperson for Nexon Japan said: “We can neither confirm nor deny the facts about your inquiry.” While another spokesperson for Bistamp said: “I am not in the position to comment on the matter. We kindly ask you to keep an eye out for any official statement from our side on the topic of your inquiry.”
If the deal happens to be at $350 million as reported, this would mean the Bitstamp is being sold at a $50 million cheaper valuation that Poloniex in spite of the fact that Bitstamp has higher daily trading volumes in comparison to Poloniex and also holds the necessary banking relationships to offer fiat trading pairs, unlike Poloniex.
While talking to Business Insider, Bitstamp CEO Nejc Kodrič told that the exchange business has grown from just a few dozen people at the start, to having a staff of 200 people as of now. Kodrič also told that during the crypto craze at the end of 2017, the exchange was getting nearly 100K sign-ups per day in December 2017. He also said Bitstamp had “more than enough internal cash flow to sustain the growth of the company.”
The latest report from Thomson Reuters suggests that there has been a growing acceptance for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies within big institutional investors and in the next 3-12 months, many of them are also planning to start trading in these digital assets.