Yahoo Finance Alameda-Backed Miner Genesis Digital Assets Weighing US IPO
(Bloomberg) -- Genesis Digital Assets is considering an initial public offering in the US, according to people familiar with the matter, as the crypto industry’s resurgence gathers pace.
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The crypto mining company, which counts Sam Bankman-Fried’s former hedge fund as an investor, is working with advisers on the potential listing, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
The company plans to raise a pre-IPO funding round that’s set to launch as soon as in the coming weeks, one of the people said.
Deliberations are ongoing and details of the fundraising plans could change, the people said. A representative for GDA declined to comment.
GDA traces its roots to one of the earliest crypto mining companies. It received over $1 billion worth of investment from the venture arm of Alameda Research, which was controlled by Bankman-Fried before his empire spectacularly unraveled. GDA has a total power capacity of over 500 megawatts with 20 data centers across North America, Europe, Central Asia and South America, making the company one of the world’s top crypto miners. It has offices in Houston and Dubai, according to its website.
The company’s predecessor opened its first facility in Iceland in 2014, and had large-scale mining operations in China before the government there imposed a sweeping ban on the industry in 2021. That year, Genesis Digital Assets raised more than $550 million and embarked on a rapid expansion in the US.
GDA was valued at $5.5 billion in a fund-raising round in April 2022, according to an internal spreadsheet listing FTX and Alameda’s venture portfolio seen by Bloomberg News. The crypto-mining sector imploded that year as Bankman-Fried’s FTX and Alameda filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and digital assets plunged. However, the industry has seen a sharp rebound, led by Bitcoin prices rising over the past year.
A slew of crypto firms are mulling IPOs as the industry makes a comeback. They face headwinds, however, such as increasing scrutiny from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, as well as dwindling mining revenue due to an April code update in Bitcoin.
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