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Cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank announced plans this week to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), potentially becoming the first exchange to list on the Japanese market. It marks an important breakthrough for the cryptocurrency industry in the traditional financial market, attracting the attention of a large number of traditional and institutional investors.
BitBank’s shareholding structure
Bitbank was founded in 2014 and had a capital base of 8.65 billion yen (approximately $60 million) as of the end of last year, according to listing documents submitted. BitBank’s ownership structure includes Mixi (26.99%), Ceres Inc. (23.05%) and Bitbank CEO Noriyuki Hirosue (30.69%).
The impact of Bitbank’s listing on the industry
In fact, Bitbank is the second Japanese cryptocurrency exchange to seek listing. The first is Coincheck, which plans to list on Nasdaq through a merger with Thunder Bridge Capital Partners IV, a special purpose acquisition company, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.
If Bitbank is successfully listed, it may encourage more companies to raise funds and expand their businesses through IPOs. At the same time, as the Japanese government continues to improve its regulatory policies on the cryptocurrency industry, the compliance and security of cryptocurrency exchanges are expected to be further improved, providing investors with a more stable and reliable trading environment.
Bitbank’s history and development
Bitbank has been operating since 2014 and has received approval from Japan’s financial regulator. In 2021, Bitbank received 7.5 billion yen in financing from MIXI and Ceres to expand existing businesses and new businesses such as initial exchange offerings, staking, custody, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Layer-2-based payment solutions plan. Now, Bitbank, as an equity method subsidiary of Mixi, is waiting for listing approval from Japanese regulators, and the scheduled listing date and market have not yet been determined.
The problem of name collision in fraud
It should be noted that according to reports in December last year, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a warning to "Bitbank", suspecting that it was involved in virtual asset fraud. However, the "Bitbank" mentioned here is Bitbank (Global) Financial Holding Group (Bitbank), which uses a name similar to the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank introduced in this article. If readers see relevant information with the same name, they need to be careful about spreading false information and Misleading information.
