Bitcoin Gets Its First SPAC

Crypto is getting its first special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), a blank cheque publicly traded stock entity with the sole purpose of acquiring a private company.

Crypto 1 Acquisition raised $200 million in its initial public offering, bringing the SPAC vehicle that is disrupting the stock market to cryptos.

“We have not identified any potential business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, initiated any discussions, directly or indirectly, with any potential business combination target.

Although there is no restriction or limitation on what industry or geographic region our target operates in, we will not pursue targets that are incorporated or organized in China or Hong Kong,” they say.

Binance thus is out. Coinbase is already public. The rest of the entire industry is then pretty much up for grabs with no indication of who they will target. As background, they say:

“Our Founder, Chairman and Director, Dr. Najamul Kidwai, has over 30 years of experience leading product and business development, investment and operational management in technology, e-commerce and financial services.

Our Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Michael (Xu) Zhao, has significant experience in cryptocurrency assets trading and investment, including starting a cryptocurrency exchange (International Digital Currency Markets) and a payments system (VGPay), and has over 18 years of experience in financial assets trading, investment and risk management.

Our Chief Financial Officer, David Hytha, has over 35 years of experience in new product development, new company development and financial management for technology-related companies. We have a broad range and depth of strategic, operational, and financial market experience represented on our Board of Directors and on our Advisory Board.”

Kidwai is a VC investor, holding board seats on Neurable, ForgeGlobal, Boxed, Alpha Square Group, Asia Innovations and Hello Genius.

Xu appears to be based in Beijing where the Cornell graduate worked as Senior Operations Manager at Microsoft China, among other positions.

Hytha is a Founder and Managing Partner at New Wave Partners in Palo Alto, California, a strategic and financial advisory and consulting company to industry leaders and new technology ventures in the US, Europe and Asia.

So the team seems competent, and they’re down at ground zero in as far as almost no crypto entity is publicly listed save for Coinbase and some miners.

They’ll thus have a lot of options as the crypto market and traditional finance continue their convergence.