Kraken Considers IPO Instead Of Direct Listing After Coinbase’s Debut

Kraken considers IPO instead of doing a direct listing after the shaky debut of Coinbase as the CEO of the exchange Jesse Powell explained. In our latest crypto news today, we are reading more about his decision.

Kraken considers IPO and is reevaluating its plans on how to go public next year after the really unimpressive performance by Coinbase said the exchange’s CEO so instead of taking his competitor’s method at hand, Kraken could go down the initial public offering road. The biggest crypto exchange Coinbase, made the news back in April when it became a publicly-traded company after a direct listing on Nasdaq. The move perceived by many as a groundbreaking event for the industry, caught the attention of others as quite a few companies outlined similar plans. Among these companies was Kraken.

The CEO of Kraken, Jesse Powell, said that they are also looking to go public next year. Interestingly, Kraken also planned to mimic the Coinbase approach by doing it through a direct listing but it seems that the unconvincing first few months where the COIN shares dropped by 40% from their peak, may have changed Kraken’s intentions. During a recent interview with Fortune, Powell noted that the exchange could put the direct listing plans on the shelf while still focusing on the initial public offering:

“An IPO is looking a little more attractive in light of the direct listing’s performance. I would say we’re looking at it more seriously now, having the benefit of seeing how the direct public offering played out for Coinbase”

If Kraken proceeds with the more traditional IPO approach, the move could raise concerns within the crypto community. An IPO requires intermediaries which are usually giant banks from Wall Street so Powell even argued that the DPO resonates much better with the decentralized nature of the industry. Powell further asserted that most Wall Street giants are unable to fully comprehend the full potential of the crypto space so he believes that the majority displayed an outdated approach and failed to spot promising opportunities in the past as well.

On the question of what Wall Street is a misunderstanding about the industry he said:

“I think it’s the same thing that the Street missed about Amazon 20 years ago and what they are missing about Tesla now. I think they are just so tied up with the legacy way of doing things. Wall Street in particular, and this is financial services, and I think there are a lot of players that have a lot to lose from the success of this space. I think you might be seeing people facing this cognitive dissonance of becoming increasingly aware of the impending doom of the legacy financial system.”