Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused merchant bank Galaxiy Digital has plummeted on its first day trading on Toronto’s TSX Venture Exchange, after falling close to 30%.
According to Yahoo! Finance data Galaxy Digital’s shares, trading under the GLXY ticker, fell from their opening price of CA $2.75 to a low of CA $1.98 before recovering to CA $2.31, meaning they lost 28% of their value in one day.
Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs macro trader, launched the company back in November, one month before bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, hit its all-time high near $20,000. Since them, it plummeted to under $6,000, before recovering to $7,520.
As covered, the crypto merchant bank reported a loss of $134 million in the first quarter of this year, in its first-ever financial disclosure. The firm, based in Manhattan, reported a net loss of $103.3 million on trading, with $13.5 million being on cryptocurrencies and $86.5 million worth of unrealized losses.
According to CNBC, Canadian regulators stopped the firm from trading on the TSX Venture Exchange sooner as they blocked its listing for eight months. During that time, most cryptocurrencies saw their value plummet, affecting Galaxy Digital.
Seemingly being unaffected by the quarter’s results, Novogratz revealed he’s looking forward for the future, as he revealed he’s proud of the progress the firm made, adding that it “assembled a world-class team with deep institutional knowledge and expertise and have also made significant strides in scaling our four core business lines.”
Despite its performance, the billionaire investor noted he believes going public was still the right move while speaking in a BNN Bloomberg Television interview. He said:
If I knew what I know now, knew the crypto markets were going to swoon as much, and it was going to take so long, I might have stayed private for another year or so and then gone public. But I don't think it's a mistake.
Per various reports, the former Goldman Sachs trader expects Galaxy Digital to one day be “globally traded” in Hong Kong, London, and Frankfurt.
A Well-Known Bitcoin Bull
Novogratz is notably a well-known bitcoin bull. He as in the past told CNBC that bitcoin could “easily” hit $40,000 by the end of this year, and guessed ethereum, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, could hit $1,500.
Giving a keynote speech at Blockchain Week Korea, the billionaire investor explained why he remains bullish on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Per his words, a “herd of institutional investors” is coming towards the crypto ecosystem. These are “slowly coming to the realization that blockchain will be internet or Web 3.0.”
