A crypto investor and billionaire Kevin O’Leary’s backed crypto exchange WonderFi, has announced it is in initial discussions with Canadian exchange Coinsquare over a potential merger.
A Bloomberg report claiming the two exchanges were in “advanced merger talks” to “form a Canadian crypto powerhouse” prompted WonderFi to issue a statement in response.
However, it was clearly explained by WonderFi that the conversations were “preliminary” at this time and that no agreement could be guaranteed.
Following WonderFi’s public announcement, the market commenced to speculate, and the share price rose sharply. The share price of WonderFi, one of Canada’s few publicly traded exchanges, has increased by almost 30% in just 24 hours.
The platform asserts:
“These discussions are preliminary in nature and are ongoing, and no assurance can be given that any agreement or agreements will be reached, or that the terms of a transaction will be agreed upon or that a transaction will be completed.”
Meanwhile, O’Leary stated in an interview at the time that “several more and even bigger” acquisitions are currently on the horizon.
On September 1, it most recently purchased the North American blockchain development company Blockchain Foundry, which just released a platform and marketplace for nonfungible technology (NFT) minting as well as a Web3 learning platform.
Coinsquare Canceled a Similar Deal Earlier
Toronto based Coinsquare does not publicly disclose the amount of assets it manages, but as per a Jan. 12 Bloomberg article, it is said to have 500,000 users on its platform making it one of the Canadian giants.
The announcement of a potential merger between the two exchanges comes just days after Coinsquare canceled a contract to buy all of the outstanding shares of a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange CoinSmart’s subsidiary, in which the two were expected to merge. As a result of the agreement, CoinSmart was supposed to have a pro forma 12% ownership interest in Coinsquare.
