Crypto Firm Abra to Go Public on Nasdaq in $750 Million SPAC Deal

Abra Financial Holdings, the San Francisco-based integer plus wealthiness absorption platform, said Monday it volition spell nationalist done a concern operation with New Providence Acquisition Corp. III, a peculiar intent acquisition institution trading connected Nasdaq nether the ticker NPACU.

The combined institution is expected to database connected Nasdaq nether the ticker awesome ABRX, the institution said successful a property release.

The transaction values Abra astatine $750 cardinal connected a pre-money basis. The firm's existing investors, including Adams Street, Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital, RRE Ventures, and SBI, volition rotation 100% of their stakes into the combined entity.

New Providence's spot holds up to $300 cardinal successful cash, taxable to shareholder redemptions, which would service arsenic maturation superior for the combined company.

Abra is positioning itself arsenic the archetypal publically traded institution with an SEC-registered concern advisor focused connected integer plus wealthiness management, offering services including custody, trading, output strategies, and collateralized lending. The institution is targeting implicit $10 cardinal successful assets nether absorption by the extremity of 2027.

"Our purpose is to bring institutional-grade on-chain crypto wealthiness absorption products to investors worldwide wrong a regulated and transparent framework," Abra CEO Bill Barhydt said successful the property release.

The announcement, however, comes against a backdrop of repeated run-ins with national and authorities regulators.

In July 2020, some the SEC and the CFTC took enactment against Abra. The SEC charged the institution with offering and selling unregistered security-based swaps to retail investors, and the CFTC recovered it had entered into amerciable off-exchange swaps successful integer assets and overseas currency. The steadfast paid $300,000 successful combined fines—$150,000 to each agency—in 2024 to settee the charges.

Abra Cease-and-Desist Reveals Ties to Binance and Prime Trust

Then, successful August 2024, the SEC filed now-settled charges against Abra's subsidiary Plutus Lending LLC for failing to registry its retail crypto lending product, Abra Earn, and for operating arsenic an unregistered concern institution for astatine slightest 2 years. At its peak, the Abra Earn programme held astir $600 cardinal successful assets, with astir $500 cardinal coming from U.S. investors.

Separately, the San Francisco-based steadfast agreed successful June 2024 to repay customers $82 cardinal successful crypto arsenic portion of a colony with 25 states for operating without a license. The Texas State Securities Board besides filed an enforcement enactment against Abra and its CEO regarding Abra Earn for alleged securities fraud successful 2023.