A team of cryptocurrency executives has joined forces to raise $200 million for a new blank-check company, seeking to capitalize on the wave of digital asset firms heading to public markets.
The newly formed entity, Bitcoin Infrastructure Acquisition Corp. Ltd., is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and filed with regulators on Wednesday to list 20 million shares at $10 apiece on the Nasdaq under the ticker “BIXIU.”
While no acquisition target has been named yet, the SPAC intends to pursue opportunities in “digital assets, Web3 technologies, financial services infrastructure, and other blockchain-driven business models.”
The company emphasized that its leadership team “are well-positioned to identify businesses that are building core infrastructure such as wallets, custody, exchanges, lending protocols, and tokenized financial instruments as well as real-world applications of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, including in payments, DeFi, and cross-border finance.”
The timing comes as Wall Street pours billions into crypto ventures making their public debuts, including Circle Internet Group and Bullish exchange. SPACs remain a popular route, with billions more being raised to help bring private blockchain companies to market.
Key Leadership and Connections to Crypto
The new SPAC will be led by CEO Ryan Gentry, who has spent the past five years heading business development at Lightning Labs, the developer behind Bitcoin’s Lightning Network layer-2 blockchain. Before that, he worked at Multicoin Capital as lead analyst, where the venture firm invested in a broad portfolio of crypto startups. Multicoin is also said to be collaborating with Galaxy Digital and Jump Crypto on a $1 billion takeover of a public firm to convert it into a Solana (SOL) treasury.
James “Jim” DeAngelis was named chief financial officer. He previously worked in senior finance roles at risk adviser Kroll, which has acted as claims agent in several crypto bankruptcies and is currently facing a negligence lawsuit tied to a data breach affecting creditors of FTX, BlockFi, and Genesis.
Vikas Mittal, chief investment officer at Meteora Capital, will serve as a director. Meteora is sponsoring the IPO and was also behind the SPAC that took Bitcoin Depot, a crypto ATM operator, public in 2023. Mittal additionally chairs CSLM Digital Asset Acquisition Corp III, which last week closed a $230 million IPO aimed at acquiring a digital asset firm.
The board will also include Matt Lohstroh, co-founder of crypto mining company Giga Energy, and Tyler Evans, co-founder of BTC Inc (publisher of Bitcoin Magazine) and investment firm UTXO Management. Evans recently became investment chief at KindlyMD, a healthcare business that merged with Nakamoto Holdings to form a Bitcoin-buying firm that announced plans on Tuesday to raise $5 billion.
Board Built Around Crypto Expertise
The chair of the board will be Parker White, a former engineering director at Kraken who now serves as COO and head of investments at DeFi Development Corporation, which has pivoted into Solana acquisitions.
Lohstroh and Evans, both early players in the crypto space, further reinforce the board’s blockchain focus.
With its leadership stacked with veteran crypto entrepreneurs and investors, Bitcoin Infrastructure Acquisition Corp. aims to position itself as a leading vehicle to bring digital asset infrastructure firms into public markets.
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