INX is making headlines today with a plan to move ahead with a IPO debuting at over a hundred million dollars.
“INX is a cryptocurrency and security token exchange hopeful that seeks to operate in the U.S,” writes Paddy Baker at Coindesk. “It’s been trying to register with the SEC for more than two years so it can offer a regulatory-compliant sale and first registered with the chief securities watchdog last summer.”
Now, INX is filing an F-1 form with the SEC in preparation for the big day. At $117 million, scaled down from an original $130 million projection this is still one of the biggest crypto IPOs in history. Actually, the biggest.
“Per the filing,” Baker writes, “INX will offer 130 million INX tokens at $0.90 each, putting the maximum raise at $117 million, which could make it the largest IPO in the digital asset industry to date. That’s down from the previous prospectus, filed in March, where the company hoped to raise $130 million by selling tokens at $1 apiece. The maximum target, if achieved, would still be $27 million more than mining chip manufacturer Canaan raised in November 2019.”
Why are crypto companies embracing IPOs?
“The move towards IPOs marks a somewhat radical shift in how cryptocurrency companies gather capital,” writes an unnamed author at BitIRA. “The end of 2017 saw ICOs become the go-to for virtually every token issuer and crypto firm, leading to a number of dubious filings and no shortage of red-lighting from the SEC. But there is more to going public than simply raising a sizeable amount of capital. Being publicly traded on the stock market gives companies an aura of credibility, as various stakeholders and investors act as a form of regulation on their own. This kind of mainstream financial acceptance is likely invaluable to any crypto company during a time when looking to attract as much institutional investment as possible.”
From ICO to IPO is a marker in how tech companies are wading into crypto as a primary use case of new blockchain technologies. Is 2020 the “year of the blockchain IPO?” We’ll see.
