Blockchain.com targets a $500 million IPO at up to $6 billion, more than Gemini, BitGo and eToro combined

Blockchain.com, the crypto wallet and exchange company, is looking to raise about $500 million in an initial public offering this year at a valuation of $4 billion to $6 billion, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. Cointelegraph, which carried the report, said the company is also open to a smaller deal if that is what it takes to list. Blockchain.com filed draft registration papers confidentially with the SEC in May, without disclosing a share count or price range.

The company has not publicly confirmed the terms. A confidential filing becomes public before a roadshow, and that is when investors will see audited revenue and profit for the first time.

A discount to 2022, a premium to its peers

The obvious read is that Blockchain.com is taking a haircut. It was valued at $14 billion at the top of the last crypto boom, so $4 billion to $6 billion is 57% to 71% lower. That is true, but it compares the company to its own best day rather than to what public investors pay for similar businesses now.

Here is where the recently listed crypto platforms stood on Nasdaq's data Monday evening:

Gemini, BitGo and eToro together are worth about $3.6 billion. The bottom of Blockchain.com's reported range is above that, and the top, $6 billion, is more than Bullish, which runs an institutional exchange. Only Circle, which earns interest on the reserves behind the USDC stablecoin, is clearly in a different weight class. Bloomberg's own framing, per Cointelegraph, was that Gemini, BitGo and eToro trade roughly 50% to 80% below their post-IPO highs. Those are the prices the new deal will be measured against.

What $500 million buys

At the reported size, the offering would sell somewhere between 8% of the company (at $6 billion) and 12.5% (at $4 billion), assuming the $500 million is all new stock. A small float is typical of crypto listings and tends to make early trading volatile in both directions, which is part of what happened to the names in the table.

The timing leans on the market. Cointelegraph noted that Bitcoin has climbed more than 30% since mid-August, when the Treasury said it would sharply increase buybacks of long-dated debt. Bitcoin traded at $83,485 on Coinbase on Monday evening, down about 0.8% from its open. Earlier this month we covered Blockchain.com's non-binding tokenized-stocks deal with the NYSE and its claim of 44 million confirmed accounts; the prospectus will be the first place that number has to be reconciled with revenue.

What traders will watch: whether the public filing lands before year-end as reported, how revenue per account compares with the listed peers, and whether the range holds or slides toward the "smaller offering" Bloomberg said the company would accept.

Sources: Bloomberg, as reported by Cointelegraph (see also Bloomberg); Nasdaq quote data; Coinbase Exchange. Percentages are our calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.