Trump is accelerating his layout in the crypto market, and his social media group DJT plans to negotiate the acquisition of crypto trading venue Bakkt.
On Tuesday, the Financial Times quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the media and technology group under US President-elect Trump is about to acquire Bakkt in full, and Trump promised to retain his 53% stake in the group. The valuation discussed by the two parties is still unclear, but Bakkt's market value was slightly more than $150 million on Monday.
After the news was released, the stock prices of both companies soared. Bakkt's stock price soared 162% on Monday and continued to rise by more than 15% after the market, while DJT's stock price rose by about 16.7%.
DJT is in advanced talks to acquire Intercontinental Exchange Inc-owned crypto trading venue Bakkt, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, as it seeks to expand its business beyond online conversations.
Specifically, since Trump's election, social media Truth Social's parent company DJT has become one of the most actively traded stocks in the United States. Although DJT's revenue this year is only $2.6 million, its equity valuation is as high as $6 billion. Truth Social's user base is still small. According to Similarweb data, Truth Social's average daily visits this month are only 646,000, while the average daily visits to Platform X are as high as 155 million.
Bakkt has been struggling with profitability since its launch, with revenue of $328,000 in the three months ended September 30, but an operating loss of $27,000. Bakkt planned to build a trading platform for institutional investors to hold digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum on behalf of customers, but it failed to develop. Due to its sluggish stock price, Bakkt was at risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange until it implemented a 1:25 reverse stock split in April. Last week, its stock price rose 15%.
It is worth mentioning that Bakkt has a close relationship with Trump. The first CEO of Bakkt is Kelly Loeffler, who served as a Republican senator from Georgia during Trump's first term. She will also be the co-chair of the committee organizing Trump's inauguration in January. Her husband is Jeff Sprecher, founder, chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange.
If the deal is successfully reached, it will further advance Trump's layout in the cryptocurrency market, after he began promoting a new cryptocurrency joint venture established by his long-term business partner World Liberty Financial and earning a lot of fees from it. The cryptocurrency market also soared after Trump won the election, with Bitcoin rising more than 30%, and the market bet that he would enact legislation favorable to the industry after taking office.
Additionally, Trump is set to meet with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Monday and is expected to discuss appointments to the Trump administration, which is continuing to nominate cabinet and other senior positions.
