President-elect Donald Trump’s media company is in advanced talks to buy the crypto trading platform Bakkt in an all-stock deal, according to the Financial Times.
The move represents the Trump Media and Technology Group’s (TMTG) first venture to branch out from Truth Social, the upstart social media platform.
Shares of both TMTG and Bakkt jumped after the FT report. Bakkt closed up 163%, TMTG stock was up 16% on the day.
ICE declined to comment. TMTG and Bakkt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bakkt was founded in 2018, by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the company that also owns the New York Stock Exchange. ICE now currently owns about 55% of Bakkt, which has market cap of around $150 million dollars.
By comparison, TMTG is now valued at about $7 billion as shares soared after Trump won the presidential election. An all-stock deal would all the company to use its valuable shares to expand.
But both companies have seen their operations struggle this year. In February, Bakkt issued a “going concern” warning, meaning it is unsure it will have enough money to keep operating.
Meanwhile, TMTG has yet to turn a profit, losing hundreds of millions of dollars, since it went public in March. Despite its poor performance, TMTG remains one of the most heavily traded stocks on the market, an indication that it is a meme stock that trades independent of is business fundamentals.
Bakkt’s former CEO was Kelly Loeffler, who stepped down when she was appointed as Georgia’s U.S. senator in December 2019. Loeffler now chairs Trump’s inaugural committee. Her husband Jeffrey Sprecher is the CEO of ICE.
Trump is already involved in the crypto industry, launching World Liberty Financial in September.
TMTG’s expansion into another holding could have major implications for the president-elect’s net worth. Trump’s 53% ownership stake in TMTG is worth about $3.7 billion based on Monday’s stock price.
