Will US Bitcoin ATM Operator With $1 Billion Valuation Be A Loser?
Bitcoin Depot is confident that its plan to go public at a valuation of $1 billion through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger deal will be successful.
In an interview with Fortune, Brandon Mintz, CEO of the company that is currently the largest operator of crypto ATMs globally, said that Bitcoin Depot’s SPAC merger will not only position it to take over the sector, but also consolidate the entire crypto industry.
Mintz further revealed that Bitcoin Depot intends to build on the momentum it will gain from being a publicly traded company by acquiring some of its competitors. This merger, he says, will be one of the most important M&A activities in the crypto industry.
“It’s a move to allow us to consolidate the industry and be one of the first companies to do that. There hasn’t been any kind of significant M&A activity in the area so far,” he said.
While the CEO did not reveal which crypto-ATM operator Bitcoin Depot is targeting, Fortune noted that any such merger would be a win for the company as it would further expand its market-leading position among crypto-ATM operators.
Currently, Bitcoin Depot operates more than 20% of around 30,000 crypto ATMs in the US, according to an investor presentation it published in August. Coin Cloud, Bitcoin Depot’s closest rival, controls about 1,500 fewer Bitcoin ATM kiosks than it.
Doubts remain about the success of the Bitcoin Depot SPAC merger
Despite the CEO’s confidence in Bitcoin Depot using an influx of cash from the public listing to finance further mergers, industry observers have been skeptical of the plan.
First, the SPAC merger with GSR II Meteora Acquisition Corp., which was announced in August and has a completion timeline reaching early 2023, has been called out by analysts. Jae Yang, CEO of decentralized crypto exchange Tacen, said the potential SPAC value of nearly $1 billion seems unusually high, especially considering the decade-old industry and some of the numbers from the company’s investor presentation.
Others have noted that an unusually high percentage of SPAC deals have failed to meet expectations. Earlier this year, Renaissance Capital noted in a report that among the 199 companies that went public via a SPAC by 2021, only about one in 10 had traded above their asking price.
