Digital Currency Group Inc., a cryptocurrency company in Manhattan. The company has faith in Bitcoin and blockchain technology as the future drivers of the global economy and social revolution. DCG owns asset management business Grayscale and the prime brokerage and crypto lending organization Genesis.
DCG also owns an independent media corporation CoinDesk and the company has sold $700 million in an equity investment round. Google and Ribbit Capital privately complete the transaction led by SoftBank Funds. This is in bid for Google and Ribbit to diversify their digital assets outside bitcoin.
After the Manhattan-based company announced the sale, the current investors are selling their shares to new backers. In this massive acquisition, DCG values at $10 billion. This is one of the few times Grayscale’s parent company has received outside funding. DCG has previously raised a total of $25 million in investment. With the financing, DCG becomes one of the most valuable privately held companies. The company thus joins the ranks of FTX, Kraken, and Circle.
Digital Currency Group Share Purchase Agreement
The share purchase agreement does not oblige DCG to buy a specified number of shares over a specific period. In addition, DCG can increase, extend, change, or terminate the agreement at any time. The time, volume, and value of stock purchases are subject to various factors, including cash availability, price, and market circumstances. The GBTC periodic reports will disclose the stock acquisition filed with the Security Exchange Commission. These files are on Forms 10-K and 10-Q as the Exchange Act Stipulates.
Why Digital Currency Group ?
In an interview with CNBC, Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, says,
“We’re the finest proxy for investing in this market. We were searching for backers who could, and hopefully would, accompany us on this adventure for the next couple of decades.”
According to Silbert, the firm is profitable and on course to exceed $1 billion in revenue this year. In addition, Silbert stated that he did not sell any shares in the secondary sale.
“The usual reason corporations go public or rush to go public is to address liquidity or money for acquisitions. But we don’t have those constraints. It’s fun for me to create this as a private firm,” Silbert states.
David Lawee, the founder and general partner of CapitalG, states,
“When I go back to the 1990s, very few of the firms I met still survive – it’s really difficult to change as rapidly as technology develops — you have to be a pretty nimble company to take advantage of it. DGC has a lot of flexibility to make investments and get into new businesses.”
He further says that he sees this as an opportunity to back a viable candidate in the crypto financial services space. During his tenure at CapitalG, Lawee invested in Lyft, Airbnb, Robinhood, and Snapchat, and prior to that, he developed an online gaming community Viacom bought.
DCG is the “single-best asset that provides us the diversification of exposure to crypto, A-Z,” according to SoftBank CEO Marcelo Claure.