Kraken is ‘certainly on track to go public:’ CEO Powell

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell believes that Bitcoin will soon replace all of the world’s currency. In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Powell said that Bitcoin would soon be worth the market cap of the U.S dollar and the Euro combined, with the exec predicting that the digital asset’s value could surpass the value of gold in the near term.

“Pretty soon people are going to start measuring the price of things in terms of Bitcoin,” he said, adding that a “million-dollar price target” within the next 10 years is very reasonable.

Right now, Kraken is in the middle of raising funds, with many valuing the popular cryptocurrency exchange at $10 billion. According to Powell, however, this is a low valuation, with the CEO commenting that he wouldn’t be interested in selling shares at this price. He added,

“We’re certainly on track to go public. We’ve had a lot of inbound interest in financing and people buying shares in the company.”

Kraken, which was issued its own banking license last year, is currently the second-most prominent crypto-exchange by volume in the U.S after Coinbase. Coinbase recently shared its direct listing with the SEC, bringing it one step closer to officially going public. Many anticipate that in light of the momentum in the crypto-market, Kraken too would follow suit with its own IPO.

On the contrary, while Powell was quick to concede that this is something the crypto-exchange is exploring, he asserted that it would probably only be next year when any developments on this front will be officially announced.

“We’ve got SPACs lined up around the corner, beating down our door looking to do something with us,” Powell said, going on to add that the SPAC route would be unlikely for Kraken given its size relative to the size of these SPACs.

“We’ll probably do a direct listing, hopefully sometime next year, but no guarantees.”