Crypto asset manager CoinShares to begin trading on Nasdaq through SPAC merger
Crypto investment company CoinShares said it will begin trading on Nasdaq on Wednesday through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company SPAC.
Company merges Vine Hill Capital To establish the holding company CoinShares PLC. The deal was completed late Tuesday, CNBC has learned. It was first announced in September and valued the business at approximately $1.2 billion, including a $50 million investment from institutional investors. The shares will be traded under the ticker symbol CSHR.
CoinShares is a 12-year-old European asset manager focused on crypto assets, serving both institutional and individual investors. It offers structured investment products and funds, including the US-listed CoinShares Bitcoin ETF, and manages $6 billion in assets.
“We have so much [assets under management] “In Europe, we don’t have a lot of AUM in the US,” CoinShares CEO and co-founder Jean-Marie Mognetti told CNBC in an exclusive interview. “We can build this organically, but it will take a lot of time, so the only way we can grow in the US is to leverage the equity currency we have developed through listing in the US.”
“We want to be a much larger company and we need to grow, so that our success will at some point be measured by our capacity to grow in this American market,” Mognetti said.
‘The job is ready for this’
List coming soon Successful initial public offering crypto custodian BitGo January and 2025 have been an explosive year for crypto IPOs. Circle Internet Group, Shape Technology, Gemini Space Station And Rise.
Cryptocurrency investors have been expecting a healthy IPO market since President Donald Trump’s return to office, given his administration’s friendly stance toward the industry.
However, the timing of CoinShares’ listing comes at a challenging time for risk-averse investors as the war in Iran continues for a fifth week and three of the major indices were pushed into a correction last week.
Crypto stocks have experienced a sharp industry-wide decline over the past six months, spurring cryptocurrency exchanges into action Kraken will be pushed soon its widely anticipated debut. Price bitcoin It’s down 40% from its October peak.
Crypto stocks have experienced a steep industry-wide decline over the past six months.
“We don’t believe in timing windows, we believe in when the company is ready,” Mognetti said. “Bear markets are when service companies list, bull markets are when advertising companies list. We don’t list because the market is easy, we list because the business is ready for it.”
CoinShares is based in the British Crown Dependency of Jersey and previously listed It is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange in Sweden.
‘We want people to own bitcoin’
He also said CoinShares has been profitable every year since its inception in 2014, through both crypto booms and busts.
A crypto asset management company is likely to be more attractive to investors compared to exchanges because revenue typically comes from recurring fees on assets under management, which can be more stable across market cycles. By contrast, the transaction-focused revenues relied on by platforms like Coinbase, Bullish or Gemini can drop sharply during periods of low trading activity and market uncertainty.
CoinShares operates in three areas: its ETF business, active strategies, and, as of last week, on-chain asset management (where crypto and real-world assets are managed directly on a blockchain).
“We want people to own Bitcoin, to own digital assets, through the different types of products that we can offer,” Mognetti said. “We make money when people own it… wherever the market goes.”
When CoinShares started its journey in 2014, market demand in Europe was entirely driven by retail investors. He said it wasn’t until 2017 that “curious” institutional investors started entering the market.
Meanwhile, in the US, institutional participation was limited as high-quality investment vehicles were not available until Bitcoin ETFs launched in early 2024. Since then, there has been a significant increase in corporate participation.
in the USA, Black RockFidelity and Grayscale dominate crypto fund assets under management. Bitwise Asset Management, a crypto specialist firm, and VanEck, which has a strong crypto commitment, are also among the leading crypto ETF issuers.
CoinShares is still run by its two co-founders, Mognetti and Daniel Masters, who runs the company.
“We still manage this company with incredible fiduciary duty, care and stewardship for both our customers and our shareholders,” Mognetti said. “Our shareholder base has been extremely stable over the years, and we’re coming to market to strengthen that transparency.”
Given that technology and financial services make up the largest equity allocation in the US, “there’s a more natural audience for what we’re doing, and we’re very keen to bring this great company to market and let the market determine how we can continue to grow in the US,” he said.
