Bitstamp announced on 29 October 2018 that it has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by NXMH, an investment firm from Belgium, in an all-cash deal.
It is known that the exchange raised funds in December 2016 at a USD 60 million valuation but after the big crypto rally of 2017, Bitstamp’s valuation spiked. In April 2017, a South Korean gaming company was in talks to buy the exchange for USD 350 million. As of 29 October 2018, Bitstamp has USD 55 million of daily trading volume.
Bitstamp is one of the earliest Bitcoin exchanges, having been in operation since 2011 when Bitcoin’s price was a mere USD 2 and is one of the top USD Bitcoin exchanges in the world. It is not the first Bitcoin exchange but now is the oldest crypto exchange still running, after the collapse of Mt Gox.
Apparently, many companies had tried to acquire Bitstamp but conditions for a deal were not optimal until now. The CEO of Bitstamp, Nejc Kodric, says, “Bitstamp has been regularly approached by suitors for quite some time. The reason why we finally decided to sell the company is a combination of the quality of the buyer, the quality of the offer and the fact that the industry is at a point where consolidation makes sense. A major factor in agreeing to the sale is that the mission, leadership and vision of the company remains the same. I want to assure you that Bitstamp remains Bitstamp.”
Kodric asserts that customers do not have to worry about changes in operations or about their accounts. Kodric and Pantera Capital remain minority shareholders after the deal, and will have a say in the exchange’s operations.
On a final note, Bitstamp started in a garage with two laptops and EUR 1,000 of cash, and now has likely been sold for hundreds of millions of dollars only seven years later. In the crypto world, this is business as usual, following Bitcoin’s explosive growth from USD 0.01 to its current price around USD 6,400.
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