Animoca Brands, the crypto conglomerate and prolific investor, isn’t asset poor.
It had almost $3.3 billion in crypto, cash, equities and other assets as of March, according to its first-quarter financial results.
Still, investors on the secondary markets aren’t impressed.
Secondary shares of the company are trading at about $1.5 billion, according to Yat Siu, executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca.
That’s almost 75% below Animoca’s valuation in July 2022, when the firm announced that it had raised $75 million at a $5.9 billion valuation.
Siu’s estimate of Animoca’s current trading value mirrors that of Bulletin, which scrapes secondary market data about crypto companies from brokers and trading platforms, among other sources.
Bulletin estimates Animoca’s current valuation on secondaries at around $1.3 billion.
NFT downturn
Secondary markets are notoriously illiquid.
Their numbers of buyers and sellers are much sparser than what exists on, say, the New York Stock Exchange.
Still, the decrease in Animoca’s perceived value among deep-pocketed investors piggybacks off of broader pessimism in the non-fungible token market.
Animoca, which has an office in Hong Kong, is known for its investments in NFTs, web3 gaming, and the metaverse.
While crypto markets have recovered since the crash in 2022, NFTs haven’t. July saw $430 million in trading volume, down from $6 billion in January 2022, per CryptoSlam.
‘Error correct’
Animoca has weathered the storm and is considering an IPO.
And Siu believes that, if his company were publicly traded right now, the difference between the net value of its assets and its current valuation on secondaries would align.
“It’s just information mismatch,” Siu told DL News, in reference to the discrepancy. “If we were actually properly listed, that would probably error correct.”
Crypto market movers
Bitcoin is up 5.9% in the last 24 hours, trading at $60,219.
Ethereum has also risen 7.8% and is at $2,634.
What we are reading
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OKX to Close Accounts That Interact with Tornado Cash — Milk Road
Coinbase Opposes CFTC’s Proposed Event Contract Restrictions — Milk Road
‘Cryptomania’ reveals the true cost of SBF’s charitable facade — Blockworks
Do Tornado Cash sanctions work? Kind of, says new Fed study — DL News
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.