The bitcoin exchange Coinbase, according to The Wall Street Journal, is in the midst of talking to investors about a potential funding round that would value the exchange at around $1 billion. The WSJ stated that its sources remained unnamed people “familiar with the matter.”
The WSJ noted that the funding round, as sought by the company, could be as much as $100 million, with no clear commitment yet from investors or clear identity of who those investors might be.
Should that $100 million materialize, it would be the largest funding round on record for the cryptocurrency movement centered on bitcoin.
Bitcoin itself, as has been widely reported, has been hitting new highs amid the last few weeks, as new cyber attacks have hit worldwide. Recent highs have had the price at nearly $2,800. Traffic has been high, and so has trading as the cryptocurrency has become a bit more widely available across platforms and various industry conferences touted for blockchain and other applications.
This year also saw the New York Department of Financial Services grant Coinbase a license for virtual currency and money transmission.
But late last month saw a swift correction for the price to less than $2,300 amid less-than-stellar liquidity.
In Coinbase-specific fundraising, the company said in January that it had raised $75 million from a raft of financial institutions, among them BBVA and the New York Stock Exchange.